For the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, I decided to have my students read the book Tom’s Box by John Prater. This is a fictional text about a boy who imagines going to a castle where a witch lives. In this story the character Tom builds a box for the witch. During the story the reader is led to believe the box is for him when it is actually for the witch’s cat, so that it may ride on the bicycle with the witch.
1. I had my students look at the cover and tell me what they thought the story was about. The answers I received ranged from a bird and boy to just about a box. 2. I had them read the first few pages and then stopped them and to ask if they wanted to change their predictions and then why they thought he was going to the …show more content…
I enjoyed the fact that while it had a somewhat spooky quality it was in reality a very fun book to read. I enjoyed doing this activity with my students because they were engaged in the story and excited to see what was going to happen next. I had a hard time stopping them from reading ahead of me. Their predictions while not always right showed me about the background knowledge they had and for me that was fascinating. The students I chose to do the activity with while they are all three strong readers they are not always eager to share what they know. My toughest student was Andrew, he read the book very well, but he did not really want to answer my questions due to fear of answering them wrong. By the end of the book I had him more confident in answering and I was happy for that conclusion. My strongest student was Anna, she was very eager to share what she thought she knew and was trying to read ahead of the others because she was so excited. I enjoyed watching her become excited about a book. My student William was in the middle, with some prompting he would answer questions and when retelling he was most times right on. The students loved getting to create retell books at the end of the lesson because they told me they wanted share the story with their families and they did not want to forget anything. In conclusion, I enjoyed