Building Classroom Reading Communities

Book excerpt: 'Merges research-based Retrospective Miscue Analysis with adapted Socratic Circle discussions, thus empowering all elementary readers to collaboratively identify and verbalize reading strategies, individually experience ownership and control as readers, and effectively build both literacy and language confidence and competence within a united classroom community' - Marjorie R. Hancock, Professor Emerita of Elementary Education Kansas State University How can teachers ensure that each child becomes a better reader? Building Classroom Reading Communities presents a successful approach for motivating students as individual readers while encouraging peer-to-peer learning. By showing how to use Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) and Socratic Circles together, the authors help teachers create a sense of community in the classroom and promote achievement for every student. The authors show how RMA--which develops students' comprehension and fluency by analyzing their mistakes as they read aloud--can be used to provide a window into each student's progress. The interactive discussion techniques used in Socratic Circles then extend learning in small groups and classwide. Teachers, literacy coaches, and others will find: - Assessment strategies and step-by-step guidance to implementing RMA and Socratic Circles - Insights on improving student skills in vocabulary, language structure, comprehension, and other key areas - Flexible, adaptable techniques for readers of all abilities - Numerous vignettes showing the use of RMA with Socratic Circles in the classroom.