Book Buddies
In the schools I have worked in, the lower grades pair up with an upper grade class and read once a week. We call this book buddies. A few years ago, my little grade 2’s were coming up to me and saying “My book buddy is fooling around.” I felt really bad for my grade 2’s because they really looked up to the older students and really wanted to read with them. So I started to think how I could focus the older students and make them feel like they were truly a part of the younger students learning and really have a type of student teacher role with their younger book buddy. I came up with an idea of a duotang that would hold reading strategies that the older students could refer to when reading with the younger students and a recording sheet (Readers Talk About Books sheet) that focused the older students in helping the younger students. Every week the older student would use the recording sheet for the first book the younger student was reading. ...
