Reading Buddies

What Would Reading Buddies Do (WWRBD)?
Have you ever wondered why a Buddy Reading System can be helpful for your students? Have you ever wanted to team up with a teaching buddy because you love their teaching practice? If you have, but haven’t been sure on “What would Reading Buddies Do? (WWRBD?!), for your students, then this might be a good read for you!
Buddy Reading can be a fun practice to enhance reading skills!
	Make time to get together with a Teacher Buddy to put  a Reading Buddy System into place. Of course the ideal setting is that if you’re an upper grade teacher you will connect with a lower grade teacher or if you’re a lower grade teacher you will connect with an upper grade teacher. Putting this system in place will get you to connect with teaching peers, which will enhance your own teaching practice along with enhancing the reading skills of your students. You and your students will gain ideas on how to improve a particular practice; Everybody wins! “Reading to younger students can help them develop a love for reading and a greater motivation to read. Younger students should also read to their older buddies each week, as this allows younger readers to feel a sense of accomplishment while they build fluency. Because the program provides success in literacy, students often become more positive about their ability to read and may also improve their reading skills. Ideally, buddy visits will be ongoing, and older and younger students will become familiar with one another and nurture a mutual interest in reading.” www.teachervision.com/reading-buddies?
You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book. ~Dr.Seuss
I have been lucky to connect with my buddy Frances Carreon for the past couple of years. It works out perfectly because she enjoys teaching the lower grades and I enjoy teaching the upper grades. I have always loved watching her teach, because, although, I don’t enjoy teaching the younger students I always gain some insight on how to improve my teaching practice within collaboration in Language Arts. Where you think your students are the only ones to gain, you’re wrong because we can gain a lot when we connect with others as well. As for our Reading Buddy time, we have it every Thursday for half an hour. Students were partnered up according to Lexile Reading Level (using HFW and SRI scores), for example, if an upper grader has a low Lexile Level, then he/she would be partnered up with a high achieving Kindergartener. Students read their Weekly Reader to their upper-grade partner and upper-grade partners will read a Highlights Magazine article of their choice and discuss what they have read. Discussions may just be about their favorite things, but other times they tap into their background knowledge and talk about their connections to life. We have also branched off to discuss a sequence of stories and writing a complete sentence about what we read. I can definitely say it’s been a wonderful experience where we have seen reading confidence increase, test scores increase, but more importantly, connections being made. I’m not just talking about the literal aspect, I’m talking about the social aspect. Our buddies are friends and look forward to reading together!
	Live, Love, Teach! ~Hilda Sanchez