Ideas for Challenging Proficient Readers (and FREEBIE!)

My teammates and I are trying something new this year (well, new to us, at least!). At the beginning of the school year, we grouped our students for Language Arts homogeneously. We used the children's IRI levels from the end of last year (if they had one), DIBELS scores, and input from the Kindergarten team. So far, parents have been thrilled with the groupings, and they have been very supportive and encouraging!

I work with the group of students who are reading above grade level, which is great! Finding resources for these students, however, can be a challenge (we don't have any kind of Book Room in our building...bummer!). Once I administered the children's IRIs in October, I had a much better sense of the levels on which my students were reading. My highest "high flyers" are reading between a 23 and a 28 (between a 3rd and 5th grade reading level). So exciting! I set about finding reading material that is not only on their reading level, but that also interests them. I asked them to complete a reading survey to give me a better feel for their feelings about reading and the topics that interest them. If you'd like to grab a FREE copy of my reading survey, head over to my TPT store!

Once I had a good sense of the topics that interest my individual students, I went to our school Media Center to borrow books to use with those students in small groups. I also went to TPT to find a book study packet that I could use with my students. I was lucky enough to find this!

I am so excited to get to work with my "high flyers" tomorrow! I hope they enjoy the books I selected for them.