Ready. Set. Read!

by Maya McFadden

Independent reading time in Cervero’s second-grade class.

Aiden receives a refresher in two-digit addition.

Second-grade teacher Sydney Cervero knows her students well — she’s been with them since first grade.

So when they came back from King/Robinson School’s latest outdoor “kindness march” still full of excitement, she channeled their energy into a reading challenge.

That was the scene in Cervero’s second-grade classroom at King/Robinson Friday morning. After Cervero’s 18 students returned from the school’s kindness march, she was met with the task of getting the class to repurpose their morning of cheering and chanting to focused page-turning.

Cervero did so by immediately challenging her students with adding a minute to their sustained silent reading (SSR) time. Each day, Cervero tasks her students with reading independently for longer and longer periods of time, with the end goal of 30 minutes of uninterrupted independent reading in class. If the students are able to reach that goal, Cervero plans to host a pizza party for them.

The routine challenge helped the class to return back to using their inside voices. “They’re committed to getting to 30 minutes so it felt like a good thing to return to after the parade,” she said.

The day before the class independently read for six minutes, meaning on Friday they had to read for seven minutes without interruptions.

As Cervero handed students their individual reading bags with books of their liking, students also grabbed “reading finger” props and plastic phones to use while reading.

“Find a comfy spot where you can read for seven minutes,” she called out to the students.

Cervero, a third-year teacher, looped into second grade this year to stay with her students who were first-graders last year. “I saw how much growth they made this year so I wanted to stay with them,” she said.

Cervero introduced the class SSR challenge because while she could get her students to read she said she felt students weren’t doing so intentionally. So the class went book shopping and filled their reading bags with books they looked forward to reading.

Now Cervero’s goal is to improve her students’ comprehension and reading fluency.

“I love how Chloe was reading so nicely,” Cervero called out as students turned their book pages.

While reading, students used a hollowed-out finger to point to their respective books’ words as they read. Others used plastic phones to silently read aloud to themselves because “when they hear themselves, they recognize more words and improve their fluency,” Cervero said.  

During Friday’s SSR time Cervero had to add a minute to the seven-minute timer after students headed off to the reading spots they had selected.

After the class’s SSR time, students went through a math refresher on adding two-digit numbers like they learned in first grade.

Cervero set her clock timer on her white board for ten minutes and some students found a place on the classroom rug while others chose to remain in their seats.

Before starting the lesson, the class took a moment to listen to the school’s announcements for its “jag-tag” raffle on the loud speaker. Two students from each class are picked for the raffle and receive their prize from school admin in the front office.

On Friday, Cervero’s second-graders Alexa and Julian won the raffle and each picked up a sensory toy of their own.

Alexa show’s off her new sensory toy to Lenny the fish.

Cervero then returned to the day’s math lesson. She asked the class what a two-digit number is. One student answered, “A number with tens in it.”

The class then read aloud the problem: “Maria reads for 38 minutes. Then she reads for 45 minutes. How many total minutes does Maria read?”

The students looked to the back of the classroom where a poster hung helping them to identify key words for knowing when to add versus subtract. Once spotting the word “total,” under addition on the poster, they quickly agreed addition was the way to go.

They then worked through the word problem by breaking the numbers down the three tens and eight ones in 38 and four tens and five ones in 45. They then added them each together to find their answer.

Not only were Friday’s core lessons ones that extend beyond Cervero’s classroom, but last month, the class did a spotted lanternfly project after second-grader Bryce discovered the school’s courtyard was home to the invasive flying bug. The students worked in groups to create different bug traps, some using vinegar, water, and dish soap. They tested which of the traps caught the most.

Sydney Cervero, on the job.