Read with a Partner

Do you do Daily 5 in your classroom? I jumped on that bandwagon this year and I LOVE IT! I have to admit I was a little hesitant about doing the choice thing and relinquishing control but I do believe if you train the kids and maintain high expectations it works. Well the choice that made me the most nervous was Read With a Partner. In my classroom we call it Buddy Reading. I started out just letting the kids use their own books and sharing them. They do still do that but I quickly realized that they were not fully engaged in the text. I decided to go through my massive amounts of books and find duplicate copies of books. I was shocked to see how many double copies I had. Then I was faced with the massive task of organizing them.

I started with the pocket chart seen below. But every Monday I would come in from the weekend to see it laying on the floor because it just couldn't support the amount of books I had in it.

Notice the check marks that partners use for 'Check for Understanding.'

So I was back to square one searching for a great way to organize my books. Did I say the task was massive? I discovered that I had 52 titles with duplicate copies. I really loved my pocket chart because the titles were out and easily accessed. I used Pinterest and searched for some inspiration. I merged some ideas together to create this.

This is our Partner Reading library. It is colored magazine bins with small icon pictures on the front showing what titles are in that bin.

Here is a close up of the icons. They are small and just hot glued onto the front face of the magazine bin. 

On the cover of the book there is a sticker that corresponds with the bin that books belongs to. These yellow stickers indicate that these books belong to the yellow bin. 

The pocket chart still seems to be the best choice for the books. I want to offer them all but rotate books through the pocket chart every other week.

So, how do you organize your books? Any suggestions?