This is a continuation of the reports on light reading a couple of days ago:  http://www.brycehedstrom.com/2012/light-reading-misses-spanish-i

http://www.brycehedstrom.com/2012/light-reading

Not every student gets free reading time.  Even after months of regular, structured free reading, where I continually coach them on choosing reading materials and where I highlight materials they may have overlooked almost every week, some just do not get it. They just don’t seem to like it and they don’t understand what we are trying to accomplish. But some do.  This is a report on those that do.

These are all students in a second semester Spanish I class that have been doing free reading once a week for about five months now.  These were from the mini-reports after a 15 minute free reading time last week.

Reading above their supposed level:

Student chose Donde Esta Eduardo? a level II book by Blaine Ray.  The student chose this level 2 chapter book and read it the entire time.  He wrote in Spanish:  “Una novela de un nino que se llama Eduardo y una chica que se llama Carmen.”  Words he picked up while reading:  absolutamente, terminado, examenes, leer, trabajo.  Pretty close.  I didn’t think he could get that much out of a level 2 book.

Student chose Hally Tosis, the Spanish translation of a fun children’s book that I sometimes read to my Spanish III kids for kindergarten time.  this edition was entirely in Spanish and it seemed like she was not familiar with the English version of the book.   She wrote:  “Hally Tosis is about a dog with bad breath.  I could tell what it was about because of the pictures because I didn’t understand all of the words.”

Another student chose El Cuerpo Humano, a book about the human body.  She wrote:  “I read about the human body.  I learned some new Spanish words about the skeleton.  It’s nice to see that some of the words almost look the same as English.”  New words:  clavicula = clavicle, rotula = patella, huesos = bones, sistema = system, nutricion = nutrition.

Always amazes me that these kids are actually trying to read in Spanish!  I also like seeing how they gravitate to interests in other subject areas.

Next time I will talk about the most popular reading material with my Spanish I’s right now:  Zoo Books.