Kira-Kira Novel Study

One of the course books I chose this year was Kira-Kira, a realistic fiction novel by Cynthia Kadohata, written from a young girl’s perspective. The narrator of the story is Katie, the middle child of an immigrant family in rural Georgia in the 1950’s. The writing is beautifully simple and the author does an amazing job of allowing the reader to see the world through young eyes. From the moment we cracked the cover to the final page, the whole class (myself included) were hooked.

From a literary standpoint, the novel offers a lot of opportunity for discussion and analysis. It touches on all kinds of issues from racism to loss and is a good entry point for having difficult (but necessary) conversations. I loved it and can’t wait to teach it again to future students.

Aside from reading specific chapters in class as a group, I assigned partner read-alouds and reading homework so I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with comprehension, vocab, etc., so I created some online reading questions as chapters were assigned. Google Drive has definitely revolutionized the interaction I have with students. If you’re not using some of these amazing features, you are missing out my friends! Click here to see my short tutorial on creating these snazzy forms and check out the links below if you’re teaching this book and need reading questions… Any other good tween novel recommendations are always appreciated. Cheers!  

 

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-12

Chapters 13-16

 

 

 

 

Making Connections

Even though all of my students are mostly fluent readers, I think it’s important to revisit reading strategies throughout the year to allow students to THINK about what they’re reading. By creating an opportunity for students to discuss and interact with a text, the learning is automatically deepened and the students feel empowered as good readers.

The first reading comprehension strategy that we revisited this year was Making Connections. When a reader makes a connection to a text, they generally make one of the following 3 connections:

1.       Text-to-Self- This is when the reader connects what they’re reading to a personal experience.

·        “That reminds me of a time when I…”

2.       Text-to-World- This is when a connection can be made from the story to something that happens in the world.

·        “This makes me think of something that happens…”

3.       Text-to-Text- This is when what you’re reading reminds you of something else you’ve read.

·        “This is similar to a story I read about…”

All of these are things that fluent readers do even without realizing it. That’s what’s so cool about teaching reading… you’re giving them skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?

Since we’ve been working with non-fiction texts for the last month or so, I was getting a little bored with the left-brain stuff so I thought, let’s do something a little different. I chose the book Harvesting Hope by Kathleen Krull for a few reasons. One, it’s a short read so my students with short attention spans will stay engaged throughout the lesson. Two, I love the life story of Cesar Chavez and what better way to tie in the theme of citizenship & government? Third, there are about a thousand connections that a reader can make with that book.

Before reading the book, I handed out a worksheet on Reading Strategies that I created a while ago and we went through them as a group as a refresher and filed the worksheet in our Reader’s Notebook. Then, I told them we were going to practice the Making Connections strategy while reading Harvesting Hope. We read the first few pages aloud and paused after each page so I could model the strategy of connecting to the text. Later, I turned them loose to finish the book on their own and write down at least 2 examples of each connection (TtS, TtW, TtT) in their notebooks to share at circle time. The following day for task board, the students took their notes from the previous day and made these awesome thought bubble pieces about the connections they made. They turned great and they had a fun time doing them. Check it out!