Student Contributor: C. McLean
The teacher has students find a partner. Each partnership receives one flashlight. The teacher turns off the lights and the student’s partner reads for 15 minutes.
This tool is for the preventative phase. It is great to get students interacting with one another. It is a fun socio-emotional task for the students to do. I introduced it to a first-grade class. We do a morning message and then go straight into flashlight Friday. To find a partner, I have students get up and walk around the room singing, “mingle, mingle, mingle” and then when I say freeze, they point to the person closest to them and ask them a question provided by the teacher. An example is, “how many siblings do you have?” Then the students go grab a book bin to share, one flashlight, find a spot in the room away from everyone else and begin reading. I made expectations that I share each time we do it. Quiet budding reading, flashlights only point at the book and stay in one spot. Students have so much fun doing this and are able to make a great connection with a peer. I noticed students interacting with one another in a much more positive way after doing this activity for a few weeks. The first week we had students disappointed with a partner they were close to. I went over how we respond when we receive a partner and after that students have had little to no problems being paired with a peer.
I placed this tool in the preventative phase. I believe that this tool is preventative because students are doing this activity prior to learning. This tool is used as a socio-emotional lesson. It allows students to work alongside peers in a calm and fun environment. Students are able to read books of their choice, or just look through pictures. It is not a time of direct instruction, but students are given the opportunity to interact with peers. I believe that this tool is student-directed because other than the teacher going over the expectations of flashlight Friday, students do this task completely on their own.
More Information –
Tool Source: Leanna Lehr 1st grade teacher
