Reflection - Minilesson on Library Visit

The rationale behind this minilesson, as mentioned is to provide students a chance to be exposed and to be able to select from a wide range of reading materials. Patricia Cunningham and Richard Allington (2002) support teachers to implement a multilevel self-selected reading program, which is part of a balanced literacy program that allows children to choose what their reading materials, and which parts of their reading they want to respond to. This type of approach benefit children because it gives them the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of literature through read alouds by teachers, it encourages children's reading engagement, it provides instructional-level reading, and finally, it build intrinsic motivation for reading (2002).

In this minilesson, I thought that I gave out too much information and I was a bit skeptical that they wouldn’t be able to grasp all the concepts, i.e., choosing by genres, authors, and series and writing them down on post-its, and remembering the three-finger rule. However, the children seemed to get the idea that most of them showed interest and enthusiasm during turn and talk, and whole class share. Nathan, one of my focal students for MARP, has shown an increase in accountability by doing what he was told, and using post-its to write down his preferences. On the other hand, Jesse was having an unpleasant day. He was upset that I did not call on him when he wanted to share because he was talking out of turn. However, after finding out that his intention was to share with the whole class about Amber Brown books, I felt somewhat glad that he was actually interested and engaged in my lesson. During library time, the kids took their post-its and searched for books. Some kids were still eager to take out books that are beyond their reading levels. One girl was upset because she said that all the books she wanted to read are too hard for her, and she had no motivation to read books at her level, because she found them too ‘babyish’. Nathan and Jesse managed to get books they wanted, although slightly higher than their level, however, the whole point of my MARP is to get them motivated. Jesse said he will be bringing the Junie B. Jones book home and read with his mother, and Nathan said he would be reading his book with his big brother.