What is your Read Room Schema?

by Leslie Burchell and Anna Zach, Read Room Coordinators

What is your schema about the IMPACT Learning Center Read Rooms? Confused by the question? Not quite sure what ‘schema’ means? Ask any of our first- through eighth-graders and they will tell you: schema is what you already know about something. It’s all the background knowledge you have from experiences, books, teachers, conversations, etc.

So, we would like to enlarge your schema about the Read Rooms by sharing a bit about what goes on each day. Our goal is to create an environment and experience where children have meaningful interactions with quality literature and learn to see themselves as good readers. During this time, we focus on the specific ways that good readers interact with a text not only while reading, but also before and afterward. In a nutshell, we are providing specific strategies that encourage these students to be active and thoughtful readers.

The Read Rooms are divided into three groups: first through third grade, fourth and fifth grade, and sixth through eighth grade. Our general framework includes a short lesson presenting the strategy through a read-aloud. During this time, the students sit together on the floor as the teacher reads the story. Before the story even begins, hands fly up, evidence of eager students begging to share their schema about that day’s book. As the read-aloud commences, hands continue to pop up as the students practice thinking aloud about the book. Next, the students have the opportunity to ‘go for it’ by practicing the strategy independently with books of their choice. Using sticky notes, they mark pages in their books where they have meaningful encounters with the literature. Each day concludes with the students coming together to share their successes with one another.

We are excited to have this opportunity to impact the students’ attitudes toward and relationships with literature. We view the learning that goes on in the Read Rooms as crucial to their development as life-long readers and positive impacters in their community.

We hope this brief description of the Read Rooms has expanded your schema and inspired the reader in you!