How to Teach Buddy Reading
Buddy reading is a great way to help struggling readers improve and successful readers learn useful skills. Buddy reading can be done across grade levels (such as a fifth grade class paired with a first grade class), with adult volunteers and students or even at home with older and younger siblings. Promote greater literacy by following these steps.
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Instructions
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Preparing the Buddies
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Start with a discussion. Have the students discuss what they remember about learning to read and what continues to challenge them.
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Explain how buddy reading helps kids learn to read.
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Go through the expectations of buddy reading. Make sure to have reminder posters of these expectations where students can refer to them and to go over these expectations each time you participate in buddy reading. Some common expectations include: Sit side by side. Allow the younger student to hold the book and turn the pages. Go over the title and author before reading. Allow the younger student to look through the pictures and make predictions about the story. Talk about the story as you read. Share favorite parts of the story after you have finished reading.
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Discuss reading strategies. After consulting with the younger students' teacher, suggest some ways for the buddies to read together. Examples include: Read Aloud, where the older student does the reading and the younger student follows along. In Echo Reading, the older student reads a page, paragraph or sentence and then the younger student repeats it. Choral Reading requires that the students read everything together. In Popcorn Reading, the older student reads most of each page while periodically pausing to allow the younger student to read the next word. In See Saw Reading, the students take turns reading--either by page, paragraph or sentence.
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Remind students that just telling the younger students a word doesn't help them become better readers. Give them some ideas on what to say to the younger students when they struggle with a word. If there are questions you or their teacher typically uses, remind them to use those as well.
Preparing the Readers
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Tell them that they are going to have buddies coming in to read with them.
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Discuss behavioral expectations. Examples include: Be respectful. Sit next to your buddy. Pay attention and turn the pages of the book. Try your best.
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Have students choose books. You can structure this in many ways--have them choose books from the classroom or school library that interest them, have them choose from leveled books that you would like them to practice with or a combination.
Preparing the Classroom
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Create a list of buddies, pairing personalities that will work well together.
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Decide how to organize the buddies. Will you split the classes up and have some pairs in each teacher's room? This can cut down on noise and crowds. Will you move desks out of the way so buddies can find cozy spots on the floor? Can you use the school library or gym?
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Develop (or find) an observation sheets to help you record what the buddies are doing. Attach them to a clipboard or a pen so that you are always ready to keep track of your reading buddy program.
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Collect the books that you would like the reading buddies to use and allow the students to choose which ones they would like to read.
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Tips & Warnings
Be enthusiastic. While students thrive on routines, starting a new, fun routine will make them really happy.
There are a lot of steps for the older students to remember--behavior expectations, reading strategies and ways to help. Introduce the steps slowly so that students feel comfortable. Don't expect them to use popcorn reading and questioning strategies the first (or second or third) day. Spend a few sessions with the kids just reading aloud to their buddy and working on the behavioral expectations.
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Comments
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