Good Spots to Read

Our minilesson in Reader's Workshop last week was on picking good spaces to read.  This needs to be taught and talked about.  Kids don't know automatically where a good place is and a bad place to read.  They need to consciously think about if where they are reading is a good spot for them.

We brainstormed good places at school and good places at home where they could read.
We discussed why some places were better than others.
We talked about the people they should be sitting by.
We discussed what they need to do if they realized the place they are reading is not a good one.

They were pretty excited when they realized they could go under their desks.  If they are reading under there, I don't care.  If they are going there to "hide" and play around, that is a different story.  But, after we discussed good places to read, they were all focused.  They all had good spots.  They all had their noses in books.  A few students got up and moved to new places when they realized they weren't comfortable or they weren't doing their best "real reading."  We want our kids to be aware of when they aren't really reading and understanding.  It happens to all of us-we read and have no idea what we just read.  I want kids to be aware of when this happens and then make changes to help them do their best thinking.