Joy Shepard

Karen, We do narration and we are loving it. They are doing oral narration with ease. We have begun extending our narration with any questions that they may have about the passage. They just state them orally. Sometimes I frame that as, "If you could ask the author any questions about the text, what would you ask him/her?" Our boys are really enjoying that and have come up with some great questions. It is exciting to see how they are starting to ask questions of a lot of things around them. We also keep an "I Wonder" book where they can record or dictate to me anything they wonder about. We keep a running list. About once a week we take time to research one of the "I wonder" questions. I let them take the lead on when they have had enough, given their young age, I want them to find great joy in such exploration.

I love the idea of the deep reading assignment and I am going to work on a few passages in a book I am currently reading and in Scripture. I am wondering how I could adapt this concept for younger students (upper elementary)? My lower elementary students (2nd and 3rd grade) currently list two or three questions for a passage (usually half a chapter or whole chapter if they are short chapters). I am trying to build that questioning muscle in them early! Any other suggestions on bringing this down to a lower level without "killing the puppy" or robbing them the joy of reading at a young age with too much analysis??