Students worked in pairs to read and discuss a text called The Quest for the Golden Feather. They generated "quiz" questions, which I collected and put into a quiz that they then worked on with their partners. We used this quiz to talk about and practice giving good, complete answers. We used this text to do some fluency practice, working on making sure our voices and expression follow and match the punctuation.
Our next story was a fiction text called Swim Free. Some students chose to again work with a partner to read and discuss. This book gave us a chance to think about how an author can use a few words, or a short phrase, to give us hints about the characters or the events. We also worked on clearly naming themes that were contained in the story. Our fluency practice focused on making sure one's expression matches the content and meaning of the text.
We used our trusty TFK magazines to work on accuracy - reading the words exactly as they are written - and on catching and fixing any mistakes we do make.
Currently we are finishing up a novel called Gossamer. We've read it in chunks, using various silent discussion techniques to share our questions and reactions with each other.
