Amazing Books and How to Use Them

Teachers have long understood the powerful role novels can play when incorporated into their ELA block.

However, with state mandates prompting an increase in adoption of basal programs, novels are being quietly pushed out of classrooms in districts that are demanding strict fidelity of the adopted basal. With this approach, the ELA block is dominated by short stories and passages.

While there is strong evidence and need for students to engage in a wide variety of texts, including short passages, the absence of novels is proving to be detrimental to a crucial part of student learning- deep engagement.

When students are actively involved and interested in their learning, they are more likely to develop strong literacy skills that will serve them well throughout their academic career and beyond. This podcast does an excellent job of reviewing the research and explaining the need for teachers to adjust their approach to ensure students have time in the day to build a love for reading.  

One effective way to boost student engagement in literacy is through the use of novels.
By introducing students to a wide range of genres and themes through a balanced integration of short passages and novels, educators can spark student interest and curiosity, making the learning experience more enjoyable and memorable. This engagement with literature can significantly improve students' reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills.

So how do teachers do this?

There needs to be a healthy balance between short passages and novels. This can be achieved with a basal- any basal will provide a decent selection of short passages and excerpts. With that, teachers need also be given the time and freedom to incorporate novels.

In 4th grade, I like to start the year with the book Frindle. This is a short read and is great for hooking kids into reading. It is a great model of story elements such as character development, conflicts and progression of plot. It also introduces students to the importance of word study, and I find it is a great book to get student buy in for studying etymology and morphology. The novel also serves as a way to introduce how to engage in a novel study, that can later be used to ensure success in small group book clubs.

After a beginning of the year whole class novel (which really could be anything) novels can be incorporated into small group book clubs where the emphasis is applying skills learned in whole group instruction to an engaging novel.

If you are using a basal... there will be a point that students need a break from the monotony of that. This is where I switch back to a novel somewhere around December. Novel choice is very dependent on class, grade level and need. I personally like to choose a novel that can easily integrate into other subject areas. I lean on historical fiction or... one of my favorite novels, The Wild Robot.

This article, “No More Strategy of the Week”: Considerations for Connecting Comprehension Instruction Back to the Book, does an excellent job explaining incorporating novels into classroom ELA instruction. I appreciate this paragraph below as it sums up how I have always used The Wild Robot in class.

​"This can be done in a number of ways. One approach is to design a quad text set (Lewis & Strong, 2020). For this approach, teachers select a challenging text to serve as their focal text and then find three complementary texts that serve to hook students, scaffold background knowledge, and help students make connections. Another approach is to simply find additional texts to help complement the main reading. For example, Ellen and Tammy have used Peter Brown's (2016) book, The Wild Robot, with fourth graders. Students read the novel with their teacher and peers, but they also read shorter texts about survival, adaptations, and habitats to complement the work. By using this text set approach, students have multiple exposures to shared vocabulary across texts and can integrate common themes and ideas between texts. After implementing this approach, we found that students were able to make deeper connections and think more critically. The fourth graders in Ellen's school had deep discussions comparing the robot Roz from Wild Robot and the invisible friend Crenshaw in Crenshaw (Applegate, 2015) and if the characters could be considered living."

Small Group Book Clubs
For teachers using a basal program, these programs prove to be demanding of time and tasks that are less desirable for students (For example, text analysis essays after every passage)

There is a place and need for that. If the mental load is heavy during whole group instruction, small group book clubs should be a way for teachers to guide students towards authentically applying the skills they learn in whole group to an engaging novel.

Given the writing demands in most basal programs, I would not make this part of the day heavy on writing and annotating.
​
Instead, small groups can be a chance to discuss concepts of literary elements with a teacher and peers. It should be a time of learning to love reading, and finding how and why people read for pleasure.

If kids are behind grade level, as a team or school a solution should be worked out to ensure these students are receiving evidence based intervention AND a time to engage in a book club. For these students, allowing time with a teacher and peer to apply skills learned in intervention to a grade level book (with supports and scaffolds where needed) often is the magic needed to prompt quick and drastic growth towards grade level proficiency. 

So what books do I recommend? There are so many but here are some of my favs in no particular order.

• Frindle
• Fish in a Tree
• Esperanza Rising
• A Long Walk to Water
• Restart
• The Wild Robot
• Out of My Mind
• Rules
• Wish
• Inside Out and Back Again
• Black Girl Dreaming
• Crenshaw
• Save Me A Seat
• Turtle in Paradise
• The Birchbark House Series
• Fairly True Tales Series