PRC2: The New Partner Reading

Like so many of you out there, I use the Daily 5 to manage my literacy stations. Partner reading is one of my favorite stations, and I recently came across a way to make it even more meaningful! I am in graduate school getting a masters in reading and my professor at my summer practicum was involved in creating the PRC2 (Partner Reading and Content too) model for partner reading. PRC2 can be used at any grade level and is for mainly reading in the content area, but I'm sure it can be adapted for fiction reading as well. The goal of PRC2  is to get students talking/ having discussions about what they are reading, and consequently develop their comprehension of informational text. I have heard so many teachers say that they have students who are fluent fiction readers, but when it comes to nonfiction the kids are lost. This is an awesome way to get students interested in content, focused on what they are reading, and forces them to monitor their comprehension. I have seen multiple vidoes, read the book, and tried it myself last week at my practicum, and I so far I love it. I can't wait to try it with my 2nd graders!

Here's how it works:
1. Make sure you have a variety of levels on the same theme, as students should be reading at their independent or high instructional level (I wrote a donorschoose grant for books on the science topics we cover to add to my collection)

2. I am considering matching students monthly by reading level as "reading buddies"

3. Partners choose a text they want to read. I am going to have bins of books available specifically for this purpose

4. Students sit shoulder to shoulder and divide the pages. If there is text on both side of the page, one student is responsible for the left page and the other is responsible for the right side.

5. Read both pages together (silently if students are ready for that or orally)

6. Reread the page you are responsible for and come up with a question to as your partner

7. Optional - "performance read" - student reads aloud the page they are responsible for. This works on fluency, but if my students are not doing any silent reading I will skip this step

8. Partner 1 asks Partner 2 his/her question (see template). Partners discuss

9. Partner 2 asks Partner 1 his/her question. Partners discuss

10. Record their fndings/new learning

11. Repeat for next set of pages.

*If there is very limited amount of text on a page - have each partner do two pages or even more. Teachers need to model, model, model what to do with different text structures so there is enough text to have discussion, but not too much text that comprehension is lost. I am thinking about dividing the text by headings if appropriate. For the lower level texts (A-G) they may have to read the entire book, take turns reading the pages and both come up with questions about the same text, if that makes sense.

Here are some mini-lesson ideas for teaching PRC2

- How to divide the text
- Thick/Thin questions
- How to ask follow-up questions
- What to do when your partner doesn't know how to answer your question
- How to fill out the PRC2 recording sheet


You can get the book on Amazon for under $5 - well worth it!
http://www.amazon.com/Partnering-Content-Literacy-Developing-Academic/dp/0132458748/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310226719&sr=1-1

Here is a form I re-created and modified from the book that I plan on using this year with 2nd graders. I hope the link works!

PRC2 recording sheet/ tips