In this video, I do a long book talk in the target language about a new reading option for Free Choice Reading. This is a Sp. 3 H class in May. There’s no way I could have done something like this in the target language at this speed or language level earlier this year or at lower levels.
I am super excited about this book talk because I finally got all the artwork from my classes’ Invisibles-style stories embedded and formatted. I know that the students are really excited to start reading the other classes’ stories!
The Invisibles is a very powerful and engaging story creation format. If you want to find out more about it, google Ben Slavic Invisibles or Tina Hargarden Invisibles, or go to my website linked to below and search out my blog post on the Invisibles.
A Book Talk is where you preview a book to the students in order to spark interest. I do a lot of book talks at the beginning of the year or whenever a class/level starts reading to build up reading interest and exposure to the library. After that, I sprinkle them in whenever I buy new books, or when I see a student reading an interesting book in class and want to talk about it, or when I’m reading a good book and want to share why I like it, etc.
I’ve written extensively about my Free Choice Reading Program at the link below, which also includes a pretty comprehensive catalog of books in Spanish for Spanish learners to build your library with.
https://comprehensiblerva.wordpress.com/novels-fvrssr-and-book-trailers/
And here are links to a series of essays on my reading program and the data it’s provided in my first year collecting reading records:
https://comprehensiblerva.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/reading-program-update-part-1-a-photo-essay/
It cannot be stated strongly enough!!! Study after study has demonstrated that pleasure reading is the source of the vast majority of vocabulary and grammar development in any language, L1 or L2. It is such a blast to see them rip off all of these new words! Get your kids reading, teachers!!!
For more info about SSR and Book Talks, go straight to the source: Mike Peto. Here are a bunch of good links to get you started:
https://cireading.wordpress.com/
https://mrpeto.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/struggling-to-hold-students-accountable-for-reading/
https://mrpeto.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/students-need-to-browse/
https://fvrclasslibrary.wordpress.com/
ComprehensibleRVA 