Class Spotlight: Second Grade Lit Circle

2nd Graders have spent the second half of the year reading and discussing books together. Once a week we meet in small groups to discuss the book, Keena Ford and The Second Grade Mix-Up. Our objective for Lit Circles is to guide our students in small heterogeneous groups in reading different genres of books critically, listening to others' opinions and commenting constructively. We also hope it will help students gain exposure to different subjects, promote a love of reading and to discuss books thoughtfully and respectfully.

 

Last week, we started the second book in the Keena Ford series, Keena Ford and the Field Trip Mix-Up. Second graders have been exploring books within the same series to deepen their understanding of main characters. As they read, they are learning how to collect and organize information about recurring characters, especially how those characters respond to problems. By becoming experts on characters like Keena Ford—who often finds herself in tricky situations—students discover that a person’s response to mix-ups reveals important clues about their personality. This helps them make connections between character behavior in stories and real life.

 

One way to have students work on important comprehension skills such as making inferences, is to have them think about their reading by making annotations. 2nd graders do this by writing symbols on post-it notes and placing them on the text they are responding to. As second graders are becoming excellent participants in the Lit Circle format, they are preparing for the Lit Circles they will be having in both 3rd and 4th grades.