What are Read to Self Centers? How can they fit into my classroom? Do they meet all my student’s needs? How can I make it fit into my reading instruction? What do I do to engage students while still managing small group and individual instruction?
If you have been asking yourself any of these questions, keep reading! Read to Self Centers will help students in their reading fluency, accuracy, prosody, comprehension and more. Let’s look at the reliable Read to Self Centers.
1. Explanation of Read to Self Centers
The Read to Self Center is just how it sounds, students reading to themselves. During this time students are given appropriate reading material, seated alone, and reading independently.
While this may seem straightforward, creating a classroom full of independent readers takes time and thoughtful instruction by the teacher. Students first, need to learn how to read books and build their stamina. Then they need to learn how to pick appropriate reading material for themselves. Finally, they need to be provided with quality reading materials.
2. Three Ways to Read a Book
One of the first instructions for Reading to Self is teaching students three ways to read a book. This encourages fluid practice of the reading skills from the very beginning. The three ways to read a book are:
- Read the Pictures
- Read the Words
- Retell the Story
Read the Pictures
By reading the pictures in a book, students become familiar with the elements of a story. In other words, they begin to see stories have a who, what, where, when and how. They learn how to pick out these elements just by looking at the pictures.
Read the Words
When students begin to learn how to read the words of a story, they begin to understand the conventional definition of reading. Students learn the importance of word decoding and a variety of reading strategies.
Retell the Story
Finally, students learn how to retell a story. This is where students learn the importance of comprehending what they have read. They refer to what they learned when they were just reading the pictures and retell the who, what, where, when and how of a story.
3. Good-Fit Books
Students need to learn how to pick right books to meet their learning needs. Once they can choose good-fit books for themselves they can begin to read independently. This, in turn will lead to building their reading stamina.
The strategy “I-PICK” teaches students to consider four factors while choosing their good-fit books.
P: Purpose: Why am I reading?
I: Interest: What do I want to read?
C: Comprehension: What will I learn?
K: Knowledge of Words: Do I know most of the words?
This strategy must be modeled by the teacher and other students. Teachers can use a think aloud strategy to show students how the process works. They could also work in small groups to encourage this practice with your students.
4. Quality Reading Materials
It is essential for students to have quality reading materials for the center Reading to Self to work. Learners need to find reading materials that are the right fit for them. This can become problematic in some classrooms which may not have the access to the quality and quantity of books needed for this to be successful. Here are some suggestions that may help if this a problem you may be having.
- Leveled Student Stories
- Classroom Poetry Books
- Classroom Sight Word Stories
- Themed Classroom-Made Books
- Themed Individual Student Booklets
- Reading Lines
- Online Stories
- Online Educational Technology Programs
Take a look at this Read to Self Launching Chart, it may help you in implementing this center into your classroom.
In summary, Read to Self Centers will help students in their reading by focusing on many reading skills needed for them to succeed. It is important to model for students how to read a book, how to pick out a book, and provide them with quality reading materials.
It is also important that you stick with it! Show students how they can build up their reading stamina. Keep adding minutes and get students involved in goal setting for the day. Your students will begin to love the Read to Self Center!
Grab your Free, Roll It! Read It! Game Cards!
Find some more reading activities and assessments in my store, The Teaching Scene by Maureen.
To read more topics check out my blog, “Seven Effective First Grade Assessment Tools”
