Why I Love Novel Studies for Elementary Resource Students
Novel studies are a fantastic tool for elementary students in a resource/small group setting.
For students who read below grade level, it may be the only time they have experienced reading and understanding a novel.
Here are my tips for doing novel studies in small group:
1- My current district does trimesters for elementary, so I try to schedule one novel study per trimester for each grade level. Too much more than that and I feel it takes away from other skills we're working on, like fluency, reading curriculum, or IEP goal-specific skills.
2- I try to align grade level content or priority standards to the novel studies I select. We currently use CKLA (though only for another couple of years- and then I'll have to redo my small group pacing! 😭), so when 3rd grade is learning about the Vikings, we can do a novel study with Magic Tree House Viking Ships at Sunrise. Or when 4th grade uses details or examples to draw inferences from the text, The BFG lends itself to this standard nicely.
But, with any of these books, I can model think-clouds ("Hmm, I wonder about ____"), check for understanding ("What was one fact about ___ from the text?" or "What did you learn about ___?"), or have students make an inference ("What might happen if the character ___?"). The whole time, we are practicing what it looks like to be a proficient reader.
*NOTE: Magic Tree House books are some of my favorites for novel studies. They are high interest, relatively short, and are also a great tool for teaching students how to incorporate "sneaky facts" into their own narrative writing.
3- IEP goals can also be addressed through novel studies, with a little creativity and pre-planning. I can progress monitor skills like main idea and details, inferencing, and context clues while doing a novel study.
*My standards-based IEP goal bank, including Reading Literature standards and aligned goals (as well as all other content areas for grades K-5) linked here.
4- Guided reading or novel study worksheets are a MUST. We answer the questions together, but while answering these questions, we're able to work on skills like writing complete sentences, restating the question to write the answer, going back into the text to find the answer, and for older students, practicing citations or RACE paragraphs within the context of our novel.
I get many of these from Teachers Pay Teachers. I created a couple myself: one for Frindle and one for Escape from Mr. Limoncello's Library.
What Does This Look Like?
Each student has their own copy of the book. I usually give them each a fun/special bookmark. (Last year was scratch and sniff!) We sit around a group table together.
The process looks like me reading aloud, but stopping periodically to ask clarifying questions about vocabulary (teaching how to use context clues to find meaning), inferencing or making predictions ("What do you think is going to happen next? What made you think that?"), comprehension using details from the text and then telling me where in the text they found the answer ("Wait. Remind me. Where was Jack?" "Where did you find that in the text?"), or summarizing ("Who can tell me what happened on this page?" or "In your own words, tell me what happened in this chapter.").
At the end of each chapter, we work together to answer the questions in our packet. I write the answers on the board and students copy them. Like I said before, this is an opportunity to practice restating the question and writing answers in complete sentences. The idea is to clarify any misunderstandings and work together for all students to have full understanding of the previous chapter before moving on. It is also a good opportunity for students to practice going back into the text to find answers. In 4th and 5th grade, we can practice using sentence stems like, "On page __, it says ___" or "According to the author, ___."
Celebrating Student Success
Perhaps my FAVORITE thing about doing novel studies with students is the success they feel when we finish a book and they LOVED it. Like I said before, often my students feel that novels are not accessible. When we take the time to read it aloud, talk about it, explain vocabulary, and answer questions in writing, they get so excited.
So many times, after we finish a novel, I ask, "On a scale of 1-10, what would you rate this book?" I can't tell you how many times students have enthusiastically said, "10!" I'm not sure if they really liked the book, or if they really liked that they were able to access the book, but either way, I am so happy for the positive report.
We take Accelerated Reader (AR) quizzes at my school, and for many of my students, our novel study books are the only AR quizzes they pass during a school year. It is such a celebration! I send emails to parents, emails to general education teachers, and generally just make a big deal about it. Seeing students SO proud of themselves and being able to celebrate them is so special.
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