Living the Speducator Dream

 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 stan...