Allison Nordby has been a Reading and Dyslexia Interventionist and classroom teacher for seven years. She has a passion for reading and language arts instruction and enjoys supporting others in these areas as well. She is a wife, mommy, teacher, and is currently working on her masters degree at the University of Houston.
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The card on the previous page indicates to the children that they should choose two good-fit books (individual selections), one heart’s desire book (this can be ANY book they’d like to choose from the library, even if it’s too hard), and three color-dot books (that are on their current reading level).
Before giving students their individual shopping cards, I create a giant shopping card for the class. From it, I teach students how to use the card, and then we practice selecting books together that fit the card. After several days of practicing as a group, I give the students their own cards and show them where the cards are kept. Then my first graders start selecting books one at a time while I closely monitor.
4. Shopping with Purpose
Shopping with purpose is well understood by every passionate reader, but for beginners it has to be modeled, over and over again. Every time I read a text to my students, I tell them why I selected it. I talk about my personal book selections as well. It is easy to see the purpose of a book about clouds when we are studying the weather.
One lesson I love doing after a lot of modeling is to allow each student to think of a purpose for reading that day and go stand by the basket that would fit that purpose. Each child then shares their purpose for reading that day and why they are standing next to that basket. Occasionally I also have students voluntarily choose a book from their book bag and share their purpose for choosing that book.
5. Creating a Balanced Book Bag
A book bag can be as fancy as a canvas sack with your school logo on it or as simple as a plastic grocery bag. A balanced book bag is one that has a good mix of genres that interest the reader. I love relating a healthy book bag to a healthy diet. In one of the mini-lessons when I teach this concept, I ask my first graders, “Would you have healthy bodies if you ate carrots, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY?” And in unison they chime back “Nooo!” (in that “Silly Mrs. Nordby” tone). I explain that our minds need a balance of texts to grow in a healthy way, too.
I prepare book bags to show what an unbalanced book bag would look like (i.e., ALL Junie B. Jones books) and what a balanced book bag would look like (a nice mix of genres that all have purpose for the reader).
6. Putting Books Back in Place
I teach my students that on their shopping day, their goal is to get three or four new books. They are to select one book at a time from their bag to put back in place. I tell students to start with a book they have read several times already. They are to identify where on their shopping card that book came from (good fit, heart’s
desire, or color dot book),
return it, and then select
a new book that fits in
that same section of their
shopping card. They are
to go on, one book at a
time, like this until their
shopping time is up. This
borrow-and-return
system is good for all the primary grades.