The Truth Behind Reading

There's a lot more to reading than just reading the words and finishing the book. You have to spend time thinking about what you just read, making connections, predicting, creating character charts, jotting down anything on a Post-It and collecting background information! At school, we've been learning reading strategies. One of the things I always make sure to do in my reading notebook is starting a character chart. For those of you who have no idea what a character chart is, well, it's basically a list. All you have to do is write down the names of any characters in your book and then you can include their characteristics. For example, I just finished a book called Lost and Found by Andrew Clements. So, I wrote Ray Grayson and then wrote: brown hair, likes to play soccer, not too good at math, likes the Cubs. Another thing I'm always sure to include in my reading notebook is a Fact vs. Fiction Chart, but be careful with this one. It only works if the book you're reading is historical fiction. You just need to make a T-Chart, one side Fact and the other Fiction. Based on the book, you write anything in the book that really happened or background information that's real on the Fact side. Leave the other one for anything that was made up from the author's imagination. Another great way for me to keep track of my thoughts is Post-Iting. I like to mark important parts and write why on the Post-It. I also like to write down any questions or comments I have. Once a week, I try to do an activity about my book. Sometimes I write a letter to the character, make a collage, write down similar book titles, draw a comic strip, and much more. I hope this post was useful to all of you and that sometime, you'll give one of these strategies a try!