Partner Reading - Conventions

Partner Reading is a great tool that we love to use in our classroom. In this case, during Readers Workshop, we gave friends some time to read their Nonfiction books with their assigned partner. Each pair was asked to explore the different conventions in their books and discuss what facts they learn just by browsing through the conventions. Conventions are the elements of a Nonfiction book that help to clarify and organize the facts in the book. The table of contents, labels, captions, headings, close-ups, charts, comparisons, photos, maps, types of print, cutaways, a glossary and an index are the many pieces of Nonfiction books that we have been studying.

Partner Reading is a great tool because we use it to hold students accountable. For closing, we do not ask a student what they shared with their partner, but we ask them one fact their partner shared with them. They are great at sharing their own findings, but the goal is for them to be listening to one another. They are accountable for what they discuss. Our friends did a great job and really love searching for and learning from conventions.

This is a chart each table in our classroom has to help them name the conventions during Readers Workshop. They also use this for the books they create during Writers Workshop.