Guided Reading Book Study Chapter 1

I am so excited to be participating in this book study on the book 
The Next Step in Guided Reading: Focused Assessments and Targeted Lessons for Helping Every Student Become a Better Reader

I was really excited because I was able to get the book on my kindle. I love reading professional development books on my kindle because it is so much more portable and it's also a lot cheaper. The downside is it is hard to flip through the book and find something quickly and I can't share it like I could a paper book. (Although I have discovered I can share The Book Whisperer and Growing Readers with a friend of mine.) As a side note, there are lot of forms and such in this book. I did discover that you can get a pdf download of the forms through the scholastic. I just opened the book on the kindle cloud reader on my computer and then clicked where it said get a pdf download. I was very happy.
I don't think guided reading is one of my strengths. I'm good at reading with the kids and working on things with them, but I'm not always good at being really intentional about my groups and planning. This is something I really want to work on. Especially because we've been given a framework to work on this year that involves tiers of RTI. Guided reading to me fits this perfectly.I'm excited to read this book because it gives practical information and actual lessons to follow.
Richardson starts in the introduction by giving the four elements of guided reading:

• analyzing reading assessments to id an instructional focus
• prompting students to use reading strategies when they encounter difficulties
• teaching skills that are necessary and appropriate for the reading stage
• utilizing guiding writing to support and accelerate the reading process

I think I'm pretty good at analyzing data to figure out what I need to teach. I need to focus on my planning of lessons and then executing the lessons. I seem to do a better job at the executing in kindergarten than I do in first grade.

The first chapter is all about preparing for guiding reading. I really like that Richardson emphasizes that students need to learn to work together, read together and laugh and play together.I found this past year that my students really struggled with what it means to work together. I hope that if I start this from the beginning I'll be able to foster an environment that is conducive to that. (Any suggestions for building teamwork would be appreciated.)
Richardson includes a great chart in this chapter that outlines the different approaches of reading and the grouping, text level, how text is read, and purpose. I plan to print this out and include it in my lesson planning notebook.  The approaches to reading are shared, read aloud, small group and independent. Each approach has a place in the classroom. We should be doing a balance of all 4.
The meat of this chapter is about setting up independent learning activities. Last year in first grade, I tried a daily 5 approach, but in kindergarten I really like using literacy stations. I like the 6 week routine that Richardson lays out for introducing literacy stations. She has a very gradual introduction and recommends using tub activities like puzzles, math manipulatives, clay, legos, block, and art projects. Set a time for 10 minutes and have the students work on one of the tubs. Set back and observe and then meet with the students afterwards. You do this each day for a week with each group using a different tub. The next week you introduce one station activity to a group and the rest of the groups work on the tub activities. By week 3 you introduce a new work station activity and lengthen the time to 15 minutes. So now you have 2 workstation activities going on and the rest of the groups are using the tubs. Week 4 you introduce another activity and extend the time to 20 minutes. By week 5, students are working from 25-30 minutes and you add 2 new workstations.Students will also rotate through 2 workstations during the period. By week 6 you have all students working in work stations and don't use the tubs anymore. Richardson suggests starting groups this week, but I personally would probably wait until the next week. Then this gives the students time to be working on workstations and I can observe.
One of the biggest points, she makes in this chapter to establish the routine that students can't interrupt you while you are meeting with a group. She suggests wearing some kind of silly hat that will help the kids see that they shouldn't intrupt you. I used to wear a crown and should probably find something else along those lines.
Richardson finishes up this chapter with a lot of suggestions about managing literacy stations and things that the stations could be. I thought I'd finish this post up with a few pins from pinterest that related to this.

This pin shows a neat way to manage the groups. You use a file folder, velcro and paper. Then you can move the names around without having to start a new sheet.

http://pinterest.com/pin/157555686936688222/

I'm thinking I'm going to use this method for showing the kids not to bother me during groups. I have some lights like this already and it's a fun reminder.

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467398789338/

These are the big ideas that I took from this chapter. Be sure to head over to Kreative in Kinder for the party and check out what other people had to say about the book.

Reading Groups Update, freebie and my Sweet Hubby

Most of you know that I am working on my small groups this semester. I've been focusing on my reading group for the past few weeks. (I have plans to work on math groups, but we haven't had a full week of school since we've been back. It's not looking good for this to be a full week either.) This week I didn't get my plans written out and I'm not sure it's made much of a difference. This week's theme in reading is birds. My kids are very interested in birds and animals in general. We use the Treasures reading series. I usually use the leveled readers that came with the series for my groups for the first part of the week. One group read a story called "Amazing Birds." They took the book home Monday and then Tuesday we read the book together  I had them tell me some things they learned from the book before we read it. As we were reading the book, I realized it would be a good book to work on pulling facts from the book. So I made a table for the kids to pick three birds and then write 2 facts. I meant to take a picture of this group, but I didn't think about it until it was too late. The next group read a book about penguins. I can't remember what it was called now. But for this group I made a circle map for them to pull 4 facts from the book. I was so proud of these kids. These 3 students are ELL students and they did a great job pulling the facts from the story. By this time, I had remembered to take some pictures.

I am really pleased with how well this went. I still need to work more on meeting with my groups and doing some word work with them. But I think I'm making progress with my goal of improving my group instruction. I have one group where they are all reading on at least a 2nd grade level. I haven't really been sure what to do with them. I don't have but a couple of sets of chapter books where I have more than 2 copies of. So the four students are reading different books. They read a chapter at home each night and then we work on different comprehension skills. One day we worked on character because they were all reading Junie B. Jones. This week we worked on text to self connections and then tomorrow they are suppose to summarize what they have read so far. I try to check in with this group even when I don't actually meet with them. They tell me what chapter they are on and I try to tell them what skill I want them to focus on. My groups aren't perfect but they are progress. I have the graphic organizers as a freebie if you are interested. They are pretty simple but they did the trick. (Click here)

Let me know if you find these useful. I love it when people can use what I create for my class.
I'm working on starting reading notebooks with my kids. Then they have a place to respond to the different books and stories we read in class. Today we used the story map from my Monster Mapping for Stories product. I copy these 2 to a page so they fit perfectly in a composition book. Once I get these going, I'll blog about them.
The last thing I wanted to share was about my Sweet Hubby. He's a veterinarian and since we're studying about birds this week, he brought a few animals in. He brought the clinic cat, Martha, an Indian ring neck parakeet, Beaker, and a Moluccan Cockatoo, Zachary. The kids loved it. I am lucky that Chris enjoys doing stuff like this and he's great with kids. Here's a couple of pictures from today.

I hope you're staying safe if you are in the areas of thunderstorms and tornadoes. We're experiencing a lot of flooding. I was hoping for a five day week this week but it could be iffy if the rain continues.

Small Group Sunday (and some freebies)

I've already mentioned on here that my OLW is intention. I'm trying to be more intentional with my planning and lessons. I especially want to accomplish this in my small groups. I thought that if I set aside a blog day for it, maybe it would help me stay accountable. We came back to school on Tuesday so already I was a day behind on my planning sheet.

 This is how much I had filled out by Tuesday afternoon at school. I had planned that day and then the next day. I was already seeing where this sheet was going to cut it for me. My top group of readers were working on a chapter book and I was struggling to meet with each group.

 This is how my sheet looked at the end of the week. Not so hot on the whole planning part. I didn't meet with groups like I had wanted and do the activities I wanted. I think part of my problem was not planning ahead. If I had planned ahead I could have asked my assistant to meet with a couple of groups each day. So Friday afternoon, I changed the format of the sheet and planned through Wednesday. I'm hoping after I meet with the groups on Monday I can finish up the planning sheet. I think I am at least starting out the week a little better this week.

I also got my fluency sheets for unit 3 complete. These have practice for long a, long i, s blends, digraphs and triple consonant blends. Of course this is the last week I'm working on unit 3 in the reading series but better late than ever. I use these as a warm up to start the group with. I have the students take turns reading rows of the words to practice their fluency and decoding skills. Here's a freebie for you:

Click here to access this freebie.
Click here for unit 1 of these words.
Click here for unit 2 of these words

I'm also sharing an updated version of my planning sheet. Click here to get a updated copy of the planning sheet. 
Hopefully you can use one or both of these sheets. I haven't read anymore in my Making Small Groups Work book. This past week was just too crazy to do much reading. I also didn't tackle any math groups at all. But there's always this week. How did you first week back at school go? Be sure to let me know if you download these freebies and how they worked in your classroom.
I'm linking up with Classroom freebies today for Manic Monday so be sure to stop by and check out the other freebies.

Please keep the student at my school, Regan in your prayers. He starts his first round of treatment at St. Jude's tomorrow.

Organization love and a freebie

I don't really have the Sunday Blues; it will probably be more like a case of the Mondays when my alarm goes off. Once I get up and get going it won:t be bad. I just am dreading having to get up to an alarm in the morning. I don't think I've set an alarm once this break and it has been so nice. My husband's alarm has still been going off but I can just ignore it. Tomorrow won't be a bad day. It's a workday so hopefully I can work and actually get some things done. My friend that just got married isn't going to be there so that should cut down on some of the chatting. I also have a follow up appointment for my knee. I'm off the crutches but having some awful swelling my leg and foot. Currently my foot looks like Fred Flintstone's foot. So I refer affectionately to the foot as Fred. I have a few random things for you tonight.
Since it's the new year, I'm trying to get better organized. It's a constant struggle for me. I do pretty well at school but at home it's a different story. Being married and having to share my space helps some. I also now finally have internet at my house so I'm really going to be serious about blogging and creating. To do all these things, I of course had to go shopping for some things to keep me organized. Yesterday we went to TJ Maxx which is always fun and not Chris's favorite place to go. (He hates it) I had seen these organizing things for desks there a few days before. We got one for our mail and then I of course found lots of other things I wanted. It's much more fun to get organized with pretty things. I got a divided organizer for my bathroom ane then these gorgeous black and gold notebooks. They came in a pack of 3 and were only $4. Here's one:

I'm using one to write down Bible verses as I read this new Beth Moore study I started last night. We also went to Books A Million after the TJ Maxx stop. I had 2 gift cards and it didn't take me long to spend that and more. I love to look at their sale items. I found 2 valentine's books on sale: Curious George and Tucker's Valentine. I was originally going to take them to school but I think my niece Sophie will like them more. I might have to go back and get a couple more copies; for my other niece and my class. They were that cheap. I also got another really cool notebook for only $2. It had a B on it and I just couldn't pass it up. I had seen someone's organization new years resolution post about a notebook they used and I was inspired. (I can't remember who it was. If this looks familiar, let me know.)
I split the notebook into several sections and it's going to be my go to book for keeping notes about future posts I want to write, my to dos, math ideas, reading ideas, and unit ideas. I just used small post its to make the tabs.

Hopefully it will keep me organized and focused. The last thing I needed to help me stay organized and together was a pouch for my portable hard drive. I usually kept it at school Monday-Friday and then brought it home on the weekends. But now that I have internet at home, I want to bring it back and forth. I wanted to keep it protected and it needed to be cute. My sister in law sells 31 so I asked her if she had any small zipper pouches she wanted to get rid of. I'd buy it. She wouldn't let me pay her. She's a good one.

I love 31! It's kind of a problem
So I have all my stuff to keep me organized and I've done a fair amount of organizing and cleaning at home. Tomorrow I'll tackle school. Or at least some. I need to get my lesson plans done first. As part of my OWL, I am really trying to be more intentional with my planning. So tomorrow I'm going to do some small group planning. I've got 2 books I'm working on reading about differentiated Math instruction and small group reading.

This is the book I'm working through now. I'm not that far into but I'm jumping into the planning aspect with 2 feet. I created a couple of pages to see if they will work. I haven't tried them and will probably change them as I get into it. But I thought I would share them with you.

Click here to check it out. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear how you keep yourself organized and how you keep track of planning for groups.
I'm linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies. Be sure to check out all the other freebies there.

 

Reading Groups and some freebies

I feel like I've been searching the whole time I've been teaching for the best ways to do guided reading or small group reading. Last year I felt like I had a pretty good handle on it because I would read with students individually. This year, I'm striving again to figure out what I want this part of my day to look like. I read a couple of interesting blog posts last week about what guided reading really was and how it had no place in the common core. I then read a response to that on another blog. (I'm sorry that I have no idea which blogs it was I was reading. I do most of my blog reading on my phone which is kind of a pain) This got me thinking. I have been planning on posting about my reading groups for a few weeks now and I was planning on calling it guided reading. I'm not really sure it's guided reading in the definition sense. I'm reading with students and working on word skills or comprehension skills depending on the day and the group. I haven't mastered the scheduling part of this or the planning part of this. I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants on most days. I have an idea of where all my students are and what they need to work on. I make notes as I'm reading and working with them. But I don't sit down when I do my lesson plans and plan out small group lessons. I probably should. I'd really like to but I just can't get a handle on things this year. I have felt like I'm behind since day one.

Anyway, I had a few things I did want to share that I'm doing that are working well. One is these dry erase circles I bought at big lots over the summer. I put them on my reading group table and the kids love writing on them.

It makes doing word work and responding to a story really easy. Here's a couple of pictures of my students responding to a story.
Another thing that I'm enjoying is these notebooks that I made. I don't remember whose blog I saw this idea on this summer but it was genius. I have four notebooks (usually this is enough for everyone to have one.) In the notebook there are pencil pouches with dry erase markers, sentence strip dry erase boards from target, fluency practice, sight word practice and my word work activities. It is so nice to have everything at my fingertips and to be able to add to it.
I made the fluency pages that focus on our phonics and spelling pattern for the week. I offered them as freebie a while back. I am offering the next unit this post (at the end). These are based on the spelling pattern for treasures for first grade and this is unit 2. I also have some sight word phrases I got from Sally at Elementary Matters this summer. The last page is my making words activities from my falling for words pack on Teachers Pay Teachers. Which if you go check it out right now, it is a flash freebie. You will be able to download it for free until in the morning. (Check that out here.)  
(This item is no longer free. It was a freebie from Oct. 16 at 5:04 to Oct. 17 at 7:14 am)

Here are a couple of pictures from my notebook:

If the flash freebie wasn't enough freebies for you, here's the fluency freebie.



Click here for this freebie.
If you download either one of my freebies, I would love it if you would follow me here and on Teachers Pay Teachers. I would love it even more if you left me some comment and feedback love. What are you doing for reading groups? Are you weighing in on the guided reading has no place in the common core? I would love to hear what's going on in your classroom.

Manic Monday Freebie

This is going to be a quick post but I had to share a couple of things. First I'm super excited because I got my materials from my donor's choose project today. I had asked for some non fiction books that were on my students' level.

I can't wait to get them organized and put out for my students to use. My kids love non fiction books and with the adoption of the common core there is push for using more nonfiction books. I'm pretty excited to use these books with my kids.
The second thing I wanted to share is a freebie. I'm getting ready to start with some reading groups this week. We've built up our stamina with read to self and we've been working on stamina in the other areas. I read several posts this summer from other bloggers about using a warm up for reading groups. I have some fry phrases to use but I wanted something a little easier for some of kiddos. I made some sheets that have the phonics patterns we've worked on or are coming up in the unit. (If you use treasures reading series this would be perfect.) The last page is all the popcorn words we've worked on for the unit. I'm hoping that if we practice these, they will become more fluent with these words. Anyway, I wanted to share these with you. If you can use them, please leave me some comment love. I'm really trying to get better about blogging more often. I have my knee appointment today and will find out what my treatment options are. I'm thinking surgery is in my future. The x-ray tech at my doctor's office goes to my church. She told me that my x-rays were crazy. Eeek!
Here's the freebie:

I have linked up with classroom freebies manic Mondays.
Be sure to check out other freebies there!