Nov. Working with My Focus Group

I have really enjoyed working with my small focus group so far!  I meet with a group of 6 fifth grade students who are low readers.  We meet once a week on Thursdays.  So far we have met 4 times.  In the first class time I was able to use the Informal Reading Inventory to hear students read one on one.  this allowed me to see what level each of the students are on and where they need help.  While all but one tested at a level 3 (the other tested at a level 1), they all needed to work on comprehension.  On average, they scored around 50% for comprehension.  In our second meeting we read In the Haunted House.  We were able to slowly go through the story, after our initial read, to discuss the sequence of events and the way the pictures add to the story (little hidden areas of the picture show that it is a fake haunted house and that none of it is real).  The students then wrote about what they would have in their haunted house and were able to illustrate it.  Three of the students stayed with the style of the book and added an element into their illustration to show that it is a fake haunted house.  In our third meeting we read Click, Clack, Boo.  Since we need to focus on comprehension we used legos after our second read to individually build a scene from the book.  Each student was able to successfully discuss a scene from the book that they remembered.  Last week we started reading a graphic novel about Atlantis.  In discussions with these students I was able to pinpoint that they all seemed to enjoy comics.  None of them had very much experience with graphic novels though.  As soon as I gave them the books they were excited...just because of how it looks!  We will take a few weeks to go through this and then create our own graphic novel.  Next week we will see what they remember since we don't get to meet this week (Barrier Island).  I am also excited to begin a reading log with them next week!