Circling Up in Intensive Reading

Ms. Corinne is always looking for new ways to empower her 9th grade Intensive Reading students. In an effort to support and engage more students during all-class reading activities, Ms. Corinne decided to put the instruction into the hands of her students. She nominated a team of Reading Circle leaders to head up small, mixed-level groups. These students were charged with guiding their peers through Intensive Reading "expeditions", including re-reading short stories and articles and answering reading questions.

Being in "mixed-level small groups is beneficial for every type of learner, " Ms. Corinne says. "Higher-level readers can develop leadership skills by guiding their groups and helping their peers work through comprehension problems. Additionally, lower-level readers will be able to learn vital skills from their own peers about what techniques create a successful reader; they can model after their peers' behavior, critical thinking and analytic tactics while working with a text."

To boost the power of these Reading Circles, Ms. Corinne recently collaborated with Ms. Stacey to have volunteers from the 12th grade AP Literature class assist these small groups on their reading journeys.

One of Ms. Corinne's students, Owen Lanier, said that the Reading Circles help him concentrate better. He also asserts that having the seniors present, who have "been there, done that" and succeeded at Freire Charter School, is an additional motivator.


The benefits of such cross-grade, student-led learning are myriad: The Intensive Reading students get much needed individual attention while being pushed to interact purposefully with the texts and their peers. The AP students get to to act as mentors and affirm the reading strategies they've mastered over their years at Freire.

For example, rather than simply telling the 9th graders how to read or answer the study questions, 12th grader Semijah Smith worked to orchestrate collaboration within her group. She notes pushing the students who needed or struggled with the article to "reach out to the students who understood it to help them out and go through the questions together."

12th grader Tiffany Brown reflected that she "felt like a teacher when the students respected what [she] wanted them to do, such as stop talking and staying on task. It made [her] feel respected, like a young adult who had some authority over younger kids."

Nawal Hussain, Grade 12, contributed to this article.