[MOSAIC] Book Clubs

[Kukonis at aol.com]

This week marked my first parent participation workshop in reading. With  
minimal guidelines, I invited parents to share a Halloween text with us on Oct.  
31st. Only requirements:the reading should be appropriately developmental  in 
terms of context and length and parents' ticket in was to be dressed in  a 
full costume of their choice. We had 12 out of 19 parents arrive at a doorway  at 
a prearranged schedule. The children had no idea that this event was even  
planned.Some chose to arrive in teams others braved it alone.
As in years passed, the parents were exceptional in their book choice,  
costume and presentation. I suggested that they come with a prepared rhyme that  
might tip the kids to their identity. I also asked that the rhyme be written on  
large chart paper. As the kids tried to guess the identity of our guest I 
kept  referring to the strategies they were using to figure out who was behind 
the  mask and made analogies as to how these very same strategies could be 
applied to  reading unfamiliar words or any learning for that matter. (visual 
clues,  background knowledge, auditory cues and the like) We also examined the 
rhymes  not only for identity clues but for notices much like a morning message 
noting  vowel patterns, letter formation, punctuation ... you name it..... the 
kids had  a hilarious time guessing... the parents got a birds' eye view of a  
constructivist approach to learning and the whole time we were fostering a  
learning community with mentors who were kids, parents, and teacher.
 
Activities like this remind me to activate learning as a cooperative effort  
and to expedite understanding by using  minimal paper and pencil  tasks