March Blogpost - Laurie Smith - Routman (2003), Ch. 12: You Only Have So Much Time

I found this chapter very applicable to my life as a teacher.  Too often I feel as though there is never enough time to get done all of the things that are expected of us as teachers these days.  There is always something new being added to our “to do” list and it feels like we are losing important teaching time and taking our school work home to work overtime and get everything done that is expected.  Between all the assessments and data collection it is easy to feel bogged down.  This chapter helped me to see that not everything is as urgent as we make it.  Not everything has to be as hard as we sometimes make it.  Our teaching lives should be simple and more efficient by spending more time thinking.  Robin Woods stated:

“I am learning that good teaching doesn’t have to mean lots of hours.  Instead, it requires lots of thinking – thinking about what matters to kids, thinking about what kids need to know, and thinking about how they can be taken to the next level.  My husband will now see me spend less time at school or grading papers and hear me think aloud more about my students and how I’m approaching instruction.  I’d never really thought about how being a good teacher could mean having more time at home with my family.”

I never really considered that all the thinking I do about things I want to do in my classroom is actually a form of planning.  Does this also mean that all the time I spend perusing Pinterest for ideas for my classroom counts as planning?  I guess it does.  This is great news to me since I love Pinterest!   It is also important to keep work meaningful to our students, so that they will “happily engage in work that is connected to their lives and in projects in which they can see value.”  I like the idea of using every portion of our day, including transitions as teaching opportunities, keeping a quick pace when teaching to help hold our students attention to keep them engaged since their attention span is less than 10 minutes before they need a break.  I very much agree with the idea that our struggling students who get pulled for “skill and drill” programs are missing instruction that they need most and should never be pulled from read aloud and shared reading time.  Instead they should be pulled during science and social studies because language development is very important for our struggling students.  It is important that we, as teachers, “cultivate a love of learning.”  We should always evaluate how we are using our time and help our student develop a true love of learning by focusing on strengths.  I’m with Jim Popham in saying:

“If I were obliged to choose between students’ love of learning and their mastery of any collection of cognitive content standards, I’d choose the former every time.  Amen.”

March/April Blogpost  (Lisa L. Smith)  CDC

“Teach with a Sense of Urgency” from Reading Essentials by Reggie Routman

Making every second count in the classroom and in instruction is a key element to ensuring that we are helping students to reach their potential as readers.  What exactly do we need to do to make sure we are developing excellent readers? 

·         Introduce all kinds of genres

·         Have multiple books the students like and that are at their levels

·         Read good literature to them

·         Share our love of literature

·         Give students time to talk or share about their reading

·         Set aside significant time blocks for reading

·         Give children choice

·         Tell students that they are readers

·         Make reading fun

·         Model

·         Link reading to the curriculum

The above are key things we as teachers can do to ensure that students have the best possible opportunity to grow as readers.  We must be the model for students then share demonstrations with students, allow guided practice and finally independent practice.  It is this scaffolding that will help them grow to reach their potential.  The demonstration process can happen while the teacher thinks aloud as she reads books, perhaps wondering and looking for questions to the wonderings.  Later in shared demonstration and guided practice, the students are invited to work with the teacher or a partner or group then do the same thing.  The process is then taken a step further when students are allowed to independently practice what they have learned. 

The article further talks about integrating skills into curriculum instead of teaching skills in isolation.  It is essential to focus on language acquisition and not letters and letter sounds alone.  It is amazing how the skills come up in books and charts about the topic of interest. 

Interactive reading which encompasses allowing the students to talk about a book that is currently being read, not just after the book is read, allows deeper comprehension and engagement.  When reading stories to the students, I use it as a time to focus on author’s craft, story structure, and other literary elements.  I might ask questions like, based on what we already know, what do you think the problem or conflict of the story might be? 

Writing is also a key element in the process.  There should be a deep connection between the reading and the writing.  The author gives multiple examples of good practice of reading-writing activities. 

I found this chapter to be very enlightening.  Not that I didn’t know many of the things that were said, but it was affirming that I was on the right track in many areas.  However, it gave me pause that I do not always connect reading and writing as well as I could.  I enjoyed looking at the examples that were provided and hope to implement some of them into my instructional practice.  I think I do a good job with the read aloud element, modeling, demonstration, and shared demonstration.  I even think that I am doing an adequate, but not amazing job with the guided practice.  Where I am sorely lacking is setting up appropriate structure for independent practice and monitoring the growth during that process.  This will be an area that I will look to improve as I continue to grow as a literacy educator.  

Jennifer Campbell, Blogpost #7: Routman Ch. 10: Examine Guided Reading

In this chapter Routman discusses how to set up guided reading in the classroom.  Students in first grade and above will usually participate in guided reading groups that are based on ability, interests, and other factors.  She mentions that in K5 guided reading may not exist and instead the teacher may teach through whole group instruction, conferencing with students, and occasional small groups.  I really appreciate when she says “..increased pressure on teacher to have children reading in kindergarten has often meant limiting or usurping such crucial activities as playing, building with blocks, painting, acting out stories, and even reading nonfiction and fiction aloud.”. 

 As a K4 teacher I do break my students up into small groups to read simple repeating books, but mostly we are working on reading during whole group instruction.  Routman suggests using a daily morning message, read-alouds, book walks, and a variety of writing opportunities (journals, charts, labels, etc.).  One activity that I learned at a workshop is called “Pictures With Vocabulary.  I have a picture taped onto chart paper and the students spot things in the picture for me to label.  They then help me sound out the words and figure out how to spell them.  It was recommended to use as a way to introduce students to unfamiliar vocabulary and expose them to new things.  Before reading this chapter, it never occurred to me that this is considered a more age appropriate replacement for guided reading for younger children. 

Chapter 9 Emphasize Shared Reading Meredith Cox

Chapter 9 Emphasize Shared Reading

Shared reading is probably one of my most favorite parts of my day.  This time of day is one my students always look forward to.  This is a time where we practice phonemic awareness, model good reading strategies, and retell and act out stories.  Shared reading is such a powerful teaching tool.  I believe that in the earlier grades we do a great job of having shared reading experiences build into our daily schedule.  Sometimes in later grades this key component of reading instruction in lost. 

While I do like some components of our Creative Curriculum, I feel that it is lacking in shared reading aspect.  I feel that a good deal of the books are too wordy and above my students level.  My students do not have the background knowledge to understand or comprehend these books.  I also do not like how the framework is laid out in the curriculum where we do not read a book over a period of time.  In my opinion reading books over and over to children helps to build confidence for children to be able to read the book on their own and grasp important details.  In another district where I taught kindergarten we used Rigby Literacy.  This program came with tons of big books and we read the same book over a period of two weeks during our shared reading time.  After I was finished using the book during my shared reading teaching time, I would place it in my library center.  It was great to see my students use some of the same strategies they had learned over the past two weeks and they were pretending to be in the teaching role.  I absolutely love big books and wish that creative curriculum had more of a selection. 

Blog Post #7 Chapter 4: Teach with a Sense of Urgency - Samantha Guest

Teaching with a sense of urgency doesn't mean teaching fast, it simply means teaching to make every minute count. It means that you are aware of where your students are and where they need to be. It also means that you are mindful of the little amount of time that you have to get them there. The teacher must be mindful of the time, opportunities, and materials that they have to use with their class. It all makes a difference. I love how the chapter stated how important it is to challenge the students by introducing complex texts and skills. We can teach reading with a sense of a urgency by having books of all levels and genres that the students enjoy reading. We can also share our love of literature, model the reading process, make reading fun, having a set time for reading, and giving the students a choice of books to read. I really thought that these points were important to remember to ensure students become excellent readers. I was relieved to know that I am already doing most of these in my classroom but I can always make improvements. I really want to start making reading intentional in all areas. I think it's a great idea to model reading from our own lives and talk as readers because that helps the students to understand that everyone reads and it is possible to read and enjoy reading. I think it's important to promote joy in learning and reading. I loved that the chapter made that point because it's great to help students assume the role of confident readers and learners. With careful modeling, supported demonstration, and guided practice, the students can learn and value what they learn. By teaching with a sense of urgency we can joyfully challenge our students in meaningful, successful ways.

Blogpost Laurie Smith January/February: Reading Essentials by Reggie Routman / Emphasize Shared Reading Chp. 9

I found this chapter on Emphasizing Shared Reading interesting.  Even though my students aren’t reading yet, I can see how this would be helpful with students who are.  It would have been helpful to use back when I taught 5^th grade resource ELA.  Routman says “ Shared reading  is ideal for showing how any text works—nonfiction, picture books, short stories newspapers, plays, poetry, chants, novels, textbooks, periodicals.”  Students are guided through every part of reading to help with fluency, figuring out words, thinking, questioning, predicting, and rereading.  She uses it in every grade level for most of her reading demonstrations.  I particularly liked that shared reading encourages all student voices to be heard, moves quickly helping keep students engaged, and builds confidence and competence in struggling readers.  I had so many students who were embarrassed to read aloud and truly struggled to understand what they were reading.  As a new teacher back then, I struggled to find the best ways to motivate and help them to want to keep working on their reading skills.  I love the way she helped guide her students through the book Keepers by Jeri Hanel Watts and Felicia Marshall; allowing them to read along with their eyes or out loud with her as long as they are all looking at the screen with projected transparency.  Incorporating talking with a partner about what certain things mean in the book and reading small sections of a story together to continue the discussion could really help the struggling readers to understand what they are reading more clearly.  The shared reading process also gives the teacher many ways to evaluate students.  For example, have the students discuss why the author wrote the piece, share a favorite part of the story with a partner, draw or dramatize an important part of favorite scene in the story, read the last page independently or with a partner and have them discuss as a class how the story ends, or practice reading alone or with a partner one page for fluency.  If I ever have an older group of students again I will definitely give this process a try.

Blogpost Lisa L. Smith January/ February Reading Essentials by Reggie Routman Chapter 10 (Examine Guided Reading)

Blogpost Lisa L. Smith January/ February 

Reading Essentials by Reggie Routman Chapter 10 (Examine Guided Reading)

I read the chapter about guided reading as I have begun pulling my students in small groups to work on different styles of books and reading.  The school provided some “Bob” books which I am using in small groups to hone in on phonics and sounding out small words.  In addition to using phonemically based books, I am using predictable books, non-fiction books, and nursery rhymes to help the students work on skills such as decoding, rhyming words, and picture to text correlation.

I enjoyed reading the chapter about guided reading as it so closely related to my present practices.  I thought the information on keeping the groups flexible was very enlightening.  We do tend to level students and keep them in the same groups.  The benefit in letting a stronger reader work with a struggling reader is that the stronger reader has a chance to explain, strengthening their skills, while the struggling reader may benefit from the example of the stronger reader.  It made me change my groups up a little.  I was able to do this with nursery rhymes especially because they were able to read the rhymes together and then talk about things they noticed like rhyming words or words with “s” that might mean more than one. 

I have been doing charts with the children of labeling pictures.  I thought that might be a good thing for the small group to read together as the label has an arrow to what it is labeling.  I am still considering how to implement this into a guided reading practice, possibly drawing interesting books out of the labels they make for the picture chart. 

I also noted that it talked about using guided reading outside small group settings.  I am thinking about ways in my mind to implement it more into whole group and individual instruction.  The chapter made me really reflect on my practices and institute a few changes such as groupings.  

Dawn Mitchell's March/April Blog Post "Examine Guided Reading" Routman Chapter 10

Dawn Mitchell's Examine Guided Reading Chapter 10

During the month of February we are learning about Literacy Development.   In both our choice and our required readings this month educational researchers explain the different ways our students grow and develop as readers and writers and their articles provide us with insight and suggestions in how we can best support and foster the literacy growth of our students. 

In March’s blendspace you will find a variety of resources we’ve included for you including the Notes/Thinking chart from Jennifer Serravallo’s Reading Strategies professional development text to use as you navigate through making connections with the four readings from this month.  Also included is the ATLAS Looking at Data protocol that we introduced to you to help analyze authentic student assessment data that can help you determine where students are as readers and writers and what support they need to grow next.   You will also find in our blendspace this month’s tech tool to take called storybird (www.storybird.com) which is a great web 2.0 resource for student publishing of their own books as well as poems. 

This month for my blog post, I have chosen to read chapter 10 “Examine Guided Reading” from Routman’s Reading Essentials for many reasons.  First, this is a classroom structure that many teachers I have the honor of working with utilize in various grade levels in multiple ways and for multiple purposes so I wanted to find out some basic criteria for effective guided reading that could provide a foundational basis for us as a whole for guided reading. 

Second, this is a classroom structure that I have had experience with as a fourth grade teacher and appreciated the structure it provided to work with a small group of students around a shared text to provide support that scaffolded students towards independence, and I wanted to expand my knowledge base.  Second

To fulfill my first purpose for reading I discovered that Atwell’s holistic definition of guided reading is, “…most often defined as meeting with a small group of students and guiding and supporting them through a manageable text.  Students are grouped with others at a similar reading level and supported to use effective reading strategies.  Often, there are “before, during, and after” activities and discussion in which students talk about, think about, and read through the text.” (page 150) Routman goes on to explain that her view of guided reading is broader and can be any context in which the teacher guides one or more students through some aspect of the reading process. 

To fulfill my first purpose for reading to grow myself as an educator I decided to use Seravallo’s Notes/Thinking Chart to hold what I learned from Routman and what it compelled me to think about.

Notes – What Routman Says	Thinking – My Thoughts
“Be Cautious About How You Group Children.”  Routman says “Once students are already reading, grouping students so narrowly is unnecessary…Personally, I am no longer comfortable ability grouping beyond second grade.  I worry about the message such grouping sends to students – a message that they are somehow less capable.  If you group by   ability, make sure you keep it short (ten to fifteen minutes) and provide daily opportunities for more varied groups – whole-class shared reading, heterogeneous small groups, partner reading, independent reading.	I agree with this thought 100%.  I have ethical issues with ability grouping students in the same homogenous group all year long.  I have seen how this unintentionally labels students and in doing so, limits what instruction we provide and what they can do. I do appreciate the suggestions Routman provides in her section on opportunities for flexible grouping and have tried several of her suggestions. (page 153) *literature circles *Re-reading and discussing a story with a group *Reading with a partner *Reading a small chunk or passage from a *book with a group during whole class interactive reading. *Engaging in reciprocal teaching *Rereading part of a familiar text as Readers Theatre.
“Be sure the texts you use are of the highest quality.  Your guided reading lesson will only be as good as the text you use.” (page 154) “Because the quality of books varies widely, be sure you carefully examine the ones you use for guided reading…For older students, put more emphasis on interest than on levels.  Once a student is a competent reader, you don’t have to worry so much about exact levels.”	YAASSSS!  Preach it Routman!  Too many times we provide students with mass produced “leveled readers” that are boring, have poorly done illustrations, and are not interesting enough to provoke discussions and extended thinking.  I loved the checklist Routman provides on page 155 to identify qualities of an excellent test for guided reading.
“…you don’t need to meet with every group every day…Once students are independent readers at their grade level, you will not need to see them every day in guided reading group:  two or three days a week is sufficient, especially if you have a strong shared reading program and a well-monitored independent reading program.	This is reassuring to here because I have found that many times I need to adjust my structures depending on my students’ needs and what the data tells me they need.  For example, there have been times students’ needed an extended independent reading block because they were “into” their books and we’d extended stamina and I was conferencing with students.  There’ve also been times when we were in a really in the zone with writing workshop and I needed to spend longer one or two days a week to maximize student motivation for the task and to make progress with their student driven products.  Knowing that consistency that you meet with students takes priority over consistency when you meet with students matches what works for me in my practice.
“Make Time for Independent Reading Your First Priority…Be consistent about reading aloud, maintain a daily (monitored) independent reading program, and implement shared reading and guided reading flexibly as contexts for demonstrations, strategies, and practice.” (page 158)	Yes!  I definitely appreciate this clarifier in this chapter.  Everything I’ve read points to independent reading of choice texts is the number one factor in promoting reading growth.  I know firsthand when implementing a new structure it can take over and dominate your literacy block crowding out any time for other equally or even more meaningful structures.  Independent reading and writing are the priority.  Guided reading supplements this.
“Keeping your focus on learner-centered reading instead of on group-centered reading enables you to make the best teaching decisions for your students.  Once again, you teach students, not programs.  Decide first what it is you want and need to teach and then what the best contexts are for teaching to ensure students are learning and enjoying learning to read.” (Page 160)	This needs to be a bill board…A giant poster…A commercial… A required public service announcement that plays repeatedly on all airwaves…Seriously I love me some Regie Routman! #makethebestteachingdecisionsforyourstudents
“Modeling exactly what we expect students to do must start the first day they enter our classroom.  When we have established a classroom where we have bonded with our students and treat them respectfully, they return that respect… Expect students to manage their own behavior. My single best piece of advice is to ignore distracting behavior. Do not intervene unless it’s an emergency.  You are letting students know that the teaching you are about to do is critically important and that they are now in charge.”	Can anyone say Harry Wong?  I had major flashbacks to The First Days of School Text but Routman and Wong and Marsha Tate along with a host of other experts in promoting independent behaviors in students suggest that we must teach students what we expect and showing, not just telling is effective in helping to create consistency in our classroom procedures and routines.  Excellent anchor chart ideas that also reminded me of the suggestions for I-Charts from the authors of The Daily Five on page 164 and 165.
“If the first question we ask students after reading is, “What words did you have difficulty with?” we are giving them the message that reading is about getting the words right.  I always ask first – even with nonreaders – “Tell me about what you just read” so students always know we read for understanding.” (page 167)	Yes! Reading = Meaning We must not reduce our reading instruction to isolated word de-coding, skill and drill, or fact/recall questions.  We read to learn, to know, to grow.
“Don’t jump right in when a child makes an error.  Students need opportunities to problem-solve in order to learn to monitor and correct themselves.” (page 174)	I believe in this whole-heartedly but find that at times I struggle controlling my first impulse to jump in and help students.  I am not helping them when I am doing the work for them.  I am actually sending the message to them that I don’t think they can do it themselves.  I want to build capacity not limit it.
“Underlying all purposes for reading is the question, “How is what I am doing today going to help students become more independent readers?” (page 168)	Yep!  That is the ultimate driving essential question for us as reading teachers.  How are we growing readers into leaders?
*Excerpts From Guided Reading Groups from page 175-182	Must Keep for Future Reference – These transcripts of actual guided reading lessons are a great resource for any teacher, myself included when planning to implement guided reading with their grade level.

Thanks Regie Routman for the wonderful suggestions and advice.  Thanks to Jenniffer Serravallo or the great structure that helped me hold my thinking.

Sincerely,

Dawn

Cox January/February Blog Post Routman Chapter 10 Examine Guided Reading

In my 4K classroom I have just started implementing guided reading with a small group of my highest students.  I began when we came back from Christmas because these students have shown me that they are ready for this new challenge.  This semester I have my lower functioning students pulled out three times a week to work on letters and letter sounds so I thought this would be a perfect time to challenge my early readers.  During this time I have only 12 students left in my classroom which provides me with a great opportunity to break into smaller groups and target my student's individual needs.  During this time my assistant works with half of the students on a variety of literacy skills while I pull my higher students for a guided reading group.  I began by introducing my students to “Bob” books.  The school has purchased several of sets of these for our classrooms and my own daughter enjoyed these books as well when she was in 4K. 

          I really enjoyed reading this chapter since this is something new I am trying in my classroom.  When I taught kindergarten years ago in a different district, we didn't start guided reading until the second semester but as times are changing, we need to start earlier and earlier to meet the demands of our students needs to prepare them for kindergarten.  After reading the section about being cautious about how we group our children, I have really started thinking if I could do it a different way with my students.  I have my students ability grouped at the moment but this chapter has me thinking if I could mix my students from time to time.  I want my students to be able partner read and learn from each other.  This chapter also has me thinking about my book collection for quality.  While the Bob books are perfect for beginning readers with easy predictable stories, they do not provide great text for really getting into comprehension skills.  These books are perfect for my early readers to be careful to look for beginning and ending sounds and use picture clues to figure out unknown words.  They are also perfect for working on word families.  They do have a lack of detail in the story to focus on a deeper level of comprehension.  This chapter also has me thinking if I should try and break the time and meet with both groups and do a shorter guided reading lesson.  I believe my lower group could benefit from targeting concepts about print skills during our guided reading time. 

          We are very fortunate to have assistance in the early grades to help with our classroom management so that we have the opportunity to work with our students in small groups.  Even when guided reading is not in the form of a small group, we have a variety of books available in every center so that children have the opportunity to explore during play.   Our students are given opportunities to make choices in book baskets during various times throughout the day.  We spend a great deal of time teaching our students how to conduct a picture walk and stress that they are readers even if they are not able to read the text.  I agree that it is so important for us to model to our students our expectations.    

Blog Post #6 Chapter 5 - Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library- Samantha Guest

Reading materials are available in almost every part of my classroom. No matter what center they are in or what activity they are doing, they are almost always reading. The chapter says that the availability of reading materials greatly impacts children’s literacy development. I was happy to also read that books contribute more strongly to reading achievement more than computer software does. We read a lot in my classroom. We complete a shared reading activity every day. We read in the reading center every day. We also read during independent reading time at the end of the day every day. I usually have books out on a variety of different reading levels. Some of the books have more pictures and colors, and some have more words. I try to also put out books in the library that go along with our unit or the theme for that time. I also have several class books that we have made together because the children love reading them and looking at our work. I try to read as many books as I can from our classroom library so that the students can then retell the story by themselves. This way they know all about the book and are way more interested in reading it. The chapter mentions that we need to ensure that students have books at home to both borrow and keep. I make sure that they have books by making them with the class about once a week. We will make paper emergent reader books at school that the students read, color, and take home to read again. For example, last week we made a book called My Jj book. I also will provide beginner books called BOB books for my students to borrow and practice reading at home. I have already seen a tremendous amount of success through doing this. The chapter also says to provide a lot of choices of books and I definitely put out as many books as my baskets will hold to give them lots of options. The chapter also talks about teaching students how to care for books, and with 4 year olds I have definitely had to do this. I have modeled how to “nicely and gently” turn the pages and hold the book. We have discussed how special and great these books are and we want them to last a long time so we have to take care of them. By now, most of them have learned how to do this. We also have a lot of “reading buddies” in the reading center, which are small stuffed animals that the students can hold on to as they read. This helps them to feel more comfortable reading and it helps them to enjoy reading more! 

Blog Post #5 Chapter 12-You Only Have So Much Time-Christina Cleland

'Lead an Interesting Life'-"We are not only role models for learning; we are role models for living."

I love this!  Life is short and we are meant to live it and live it well.  Our little people that come into our lives have an optimistic outlook about them, even when they come from hard circumstances.  Sometimes it is because they have not been in the world long enough to know that their circumstances may be different or challenging.  I think they soak up anything we tell them about our lives and how we live them.  I love sharing experiences with them and I love hearing all of their stories!  If I spend all of my time working and striving and never living, I lose my joy and so do they because I have nothing left to give them.

‘Trust Your Own Experiences to Help You Plan Well’ -I think this is incredibly important.  We spend a lot of time with our little people.  As the teacher I am the only one who can figure out each student and what they need.  While it is important to use curriculum and standards, I must always be attuned to how I need to restructure those plans to meet my students and help them grow.

'Make work being done while waiting pleasurable' is another key point made in the chapter.  We have ‘extra’ time in the morning when the students are eating breakfast and getting unpacked for the day.  I have many times been tempted to make that a time where they get straight to work at the tables but I have resisted because I think that morning welcome time is vital.  It builds a sense of community with our class.  Our students need routine in their lives desperately and they come to depend on our little welcome routine each morning.  I enjoy hearing them talk with each other about things and we learn a lot about them just by listening to what they have to say to each other.  There is plenty of time later for being quiet and listening so I do not mind the ‘talking and sharing’ first thing in the morning.

The key is to make an effort to lead a balanced life in and out of the classroom.

Blog Post #5Laurie Smith Routman Ch. 5: Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library

“It is difficult to maintain a strong independent reading program without an excellent classroom library.”  It is important that children have access to many different types of books in the classroom so that they develop a love of them and of reading, but creating an organized classroom library can be challenging. With my 3 and 4 year olds, who are not reading independently yet, it is just as important to have a variety of book genres.  Just because they cannot read yet, doesn’t mean they cannot enjoy looking at the pictures or enjoy having it read to them.  They can still pick their favorites.  I recently received a book order from scholastic and it sat in the box for several weeks before I actually had time to go through it.  December was a busy month.  When I finally went through the boxes of books I automatically started putting them in piles by category.  Before I knew it I had begun organizing my classroom library.  My floor was covered in books and once I start that kind of project, I’m working until it’s complete.  I had several different stashes of books around the room that I included in the organization process.  I decided that for my students, the best way to organize the books was by topic.  I made categories like animals, numbers, colors, shapes, family, school, nature, self-help, etc.  I feel like this is the best way to organize it.  Right now I have the number books on display and the color and shape books in two separate bins labeled accordingly.  These are subjects that we are constantly working on, so I thought I would start by putting those out first.  I have a limited amount of space for my library, so I can only display a few categories of books at a time.  The others I’m not displaying are stored in bins that are labeled accordingly on the shelf by my desk.  I plan on changing them out every couple weeks so that there is always something new to look at in our reading corner.  Routman states that “an adequate library will have at least two hundred books, but an excellent library will have more than a thousand.”   I’m positive I have at least two hundred and that is a good start.  I plan on getting more to add to it over time.  I find at this age, it is more important to have books that peak the students interest rather than have them all leveled, especially since my students are not reading yet.  I am very excited about my small classroom library and I can’t wait to see my students enjoying it as well as how it will evolve over time.  I know it won’t always stay the way it is now because I will add to it and tweak it as my students’ needs and interests change.

Meredith Cox, Blog Post #5 Reading Essentials chapter 8 Teach Comprehension

“If we want kids to wind up with comprehension, we have to begin with comprehension.”  It is so important that we begin teaching comprehension in four year old kindergarten classrooms.  Many of my students are lacking in background knowledge and prior experiences to be able to comprehend the text.  It is so important that I expose my students to a wide variety of children’s literature while they are in my classroom. I have to help my students develop the vocabulary to discuss and answer questions about books in my classroom.  I accomplish this mostly by modeling comprehension strategies.  We talk a lot about what good readers do.  We focus on conducting picture walks when introducing a book. I encourage my students that they can do a picture walk themselves when they select a book.  Although they may not be able to read the words of the text, they can read a book by looking at the pictures and telling a story about what they see happening in the book.  When I select a book that I want to focus on comprehension, I try to use a predictable story that is easy for a four year old to comprehend.  This chapter stresses that students are not able to read for meaning if they are struggling over words and concepts.  To relate this to my four year olds, I believe that it is important for me to select children’s literature that is not too “wordy” for my students.  It is important to select a book on their level that they will understand.  After we read a story I usually place the book in our library center for students to read during center time.  I am so proud when I see my students using props and sequencing events that happened in a story that we have read over a long period of time during our shared reading time. 

1. Jennifer Campbell’s Blog Post # 6, Miller (2013), Section 1: Not This: Is There Enough Time? And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?

At this beginning of this section, Miller talks about how some teachers spend their reading time running through the calendar, looking up vocabulary words, workbooks, worksheets, test-prep materials, and spelling practice. 

            I began the school year not wanting to consider an independent reading block only because I remembered times that when I worked in other classes, students read only during Interest Areas and they played.  They did not look at books for long periods of time and would often ask to leave for a better center, usually Blocks or Dramatic Play.  My first few weeks of school I did not assign Interest Areas and my students never picked the Library Center.  Once we got past that first month and some of my students were finishing up their work faster they needed something to do, so I told them to get a book.  We started filling in our odd left over minutes with books.  When we finally had our schedule finally ironed out, I added in a reading block once a week to see how it would go.  At first it was awful.  They looked at the books for five minutes before they lost interest. Sometimes they wanted an adult to read to them, which is great, except I would have a line of five students wanting to be read to and they spent the block standing around.  So we would end the block early and move on to something more captivating.  Each week I tried adding a few more minutes and each week it got a little better.  Now they are lasting the entire 30 minute block and sometimes I’ll extend it if they seem really interested in their books.  They have also become more likely to choose the Library Interest Area on their own and when I do assign it, they do not ask me if they can go somewhere different to play. 

Jennifer Campbell’s Blog Post # 5, Miller (2013), Section 2: Why Not? What Works? Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It

    In this section, I zeroed in on Miller saying “Fountas and Pinnell (1996) recommend that teachers have between three hundred and six hundred titles in their classroom libraries.  The International Reading Association (1999) recommends seven books per student.  More importantly, you need materials that address topics that kids want to read about.”  I think this especially important when providing materials for young children, some of which have not had much exposure to books in their homes.

     When I first started this year, my classroom library was a weird mix of books that had been left by other teachers and a few books that were provided along with the curriculum.  I do have a large personal collection of books at home that are still being used by my children that I will sometimes bring in to share, but I mostly have used the library to supplement.  I noticed, which I think is also typical, my students really gravitated towards books about animals.  Not just “Brown Bear” and “Pete the Cat”, but the National Geographic books about animals.  They even fight over them.  When I was given the chance to order books from Scholastic I used most of the money towards National Geographic books.  My students LOVE them!  They are no where near grade level and I’m sure my students will never be able to read the words, but I believe the exposure to a book that is fascinating to them is much more important to them at this age. 

Dawn Mitchell's Share Your Reading Life Regie Routman's Chapter 2

During the month of January our application we are working on learning about Socio Cultural Learning theories and strategies that help support student talk.   In our required reading this month Richard Allington identifies student talk as one of the essential components that characterize the most effective teachers’ classrooms. 

In January’s blendspace you will find a variety of resources we’ve included for you including the four theories that we are sharing with you such as Owocki and Goodman’s kidwatching excerpts that focus on sociocultural learning and talk and Chorzerpa’s suggestions for utilizing Socratic Seminar to promote active student engagement in learning.  You will also find in our blendspace an example of an award-winning podcast in the link to NPR’s “This I Believe” podcast series as well as a link to try out a very user friendly podcasting tool for students called vocaroo (vocaroo.com) 

This month for my blog post, I have chosen to read chapter 3 “Share Your Reading Life” from Routman’s Reading Essentials for many reasons.  First of all, I believe that this directs to the importance of talk in our classroom.  How many of us love to read and love to talk about what we are reading?  I know that many times I have read a book that has deeply affected me as a reader and I have immediately wanted to share that experience with another human. 

When I was in the second grade and read, Charlotte’s Web I remember sitting beside my best friend at the time, Amanda Ravan just a crying over the loss of Charlotte and the heart warming knowledge that I at 8 had experienced the joy of friendship.  When I was in the fifth grade and read Where the Red Fern Grows I remember vividly having to re-read it at night to my twin brother because I wanted someone else to know those two coon dogs, Little Ann and Ole’ Dan that had stolen my heart and made me love the outdoors all over again.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit to you that in college when Greg and I first met I read Nicolas Spark’s The Notebook and was so smitten by the idea of a love like that I asked him would he please read because I hoped that the new love we had found might grow into a lasting life time love like the two characters based on the author’s grandparents had found.  I know cheesy right! 

As readers we connect to what we read and we are compelled to share our thoughts with others.  When Lily Grace figured out what Severus Snape’s heart was really about in Harry Potter she had to run downstairs and tell me that he wasn’t all bad and she couldn’t believe I had let her peg him wrong all this time when I knew he actually helped save Harry in the end!  I told her that I was waiting to see her reaction and I didn’t want to spoil the discovery of loyalty in his character for her.  We then both concurred that J.K. Rowling had magical writing abilities to draw out his character development.

Our students need time to talk about what they’ve read, to transact with others who may affirm their thoughts and more importantly, who may challenge them and open them up to a new way of thinking.  In my first summer of the Spartanburg Writing Project, my book club that read and wrote under the influence of Barbara Kingsolver’s work that summer challenged my thinking and my writing in ways that grew me. 

In this month’s article, Allington states,  "..if we want to increase substantially the amount of reading that children do (and would I argue that this is one absolutely crucial step toward enhancing reading proficiency), it is important to give children books they can read and choices regarding which books they will read. Likewise, crafting a supportive conversational environment in which students talk to their teachers and to their peers about the books they are reading is an important component for sustaining increased reading. And active teaching of useful reading strategies expands the array of books that children are able to read. Finally, shifting evaluation to focus on effort and improvement enhances students' motivation for reading."  (Allington, 2002 pg. 8)

One of the strategies that Routman made in this chapter is to share your now and your next book and to have a record of your reading.  In my writer’s notebook I have a running list of books I’ve read so I can remember them for mentor texts and for the memories.

Each month I visit Mr. K’s Used Book store in Greenville (in Verdae Shopping Center off the Motor Mile) and buy my stack for the month.  Below is my picture of my Now Book stack.  Every single book in this stack was recommended to me by a friend.  Keri Lyles from Arcadia recommended Outlander (she was right, it is full of adventure, history, suspense, and a little romance too!).  A friend of mine I met in Kentucky when Tasha Thomas and I presented at a Writing Conference there recommended The Goldfinch to me on facebook and The Martian was highly recommended to me by my parents. 

Here is a picture of my Next Book Stack and both books on this list made the list through talking with others.  The Rick Bragg book is on my next stack because he is an all-time favorite of mine and two friends, Susan Cox and Pam Ray recommended this one to me recently.  The ESV Bible was given to me for Christmas by my husband Greg because two friends of mine recommended this translation to me. 

Other take aways for me from this chapter include:

*Favorite Author Area – page 30

*Baskets of Recommended books – page 30

*Keeping a Simple Reading Record – page 35

*Demonstrating How You Read and Your Love For Reading – page 36

Routman says on page 24 that it is important that we share our love of reading with our students.  “I want students to know I am compelled to read.  It is almost impossible for me not to read.  It’s much more than enjoying a well-told story, increasing my knowledge about the world, following directions, or say, understanding philosophy.  Reading pervades my life and sustains me the same way friendship and love do.  Reading gives me joy, comfort, perspective, new ideas, questions to ponder, and connections to other lives.  I want nothing less for my students.” (Routman, page 24)

I agree whole-heartedly.  #readersareleaders

Sincerely,

Dawn

During the month of January our application we are working on learning about Socio Cultural Learning theories and strategies that help support student talk.   In our required reading this month Richard Allington identifies student talk as one of the essential components that characterize the most effective teachers’ classrooms. 

In January’s blendspace you will find a variety of resources we’ve included for you including the four theories that we are sharing with you such as Owocki and Goodman’s kidwatching excerpts that focus on sociocultural learning and talk and Chorzerpa’s suggestions for utilizing Socratic Seminar to promote active student engagement in learning.  You will also find in our blendspace an example of an award-winning podcast in the link to NPR’s “This I Believe” podcast series as well as a link to try out a very user friendly podcasting tool for students called vocaroo (vocaroo.com) 

This month for my blog post, I have chosen to read chapter 3 “Share Your Reading Life” from Routman’s Reading Essentials for many reasons.  First of all, I believe that this directs to the importance of talk in our classroom.  How many of us love to read and love to talk about what we are reading?  I know that many times I have read a book that has deeply affected me as a reader and I have immediately wanted to share that experience with another human. 

When I was in the second grade and read, Charlotte’s Web I remember sitting beside my best friend at the time, Amanda Ravan just a crying over the loss of Charlotte and the heart warming knowledge that I at 8 had experienced the joy of friendship.  When I was in the fifth grade and read Where the Red Fern Grows I remember vividly having to re-read it at night to my twin brother because I wanted someone else to know those two coon dogs, Little Ann and Ole’ Dan that had stolen my heart and made me love the outdoors all over again.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit to you that in college when Greg and I first met I read Nicolas Spark’s The Notebook and was so smitten by the idea of a love like that I asked him would he please read because I hoped that the new love we had found might grow into a lasting life time love like the two characters based on the author’s grandparents had found.  I know cheesy right! 

As readers we connect to what we read and we are compelled to share our thoughts with others.  When Lily Grace figured out what Severus Snape’s heart was really about in Harry Potter she had to run downstairs and tell me that he wasn’t all bad and she couldn’t believe I had let her peg him wrong all this time when I knew he actually helped save Harry in the end!  I told her that I was waiting to see her reaction and I didn’t want to spoil the discovery of loyalty in his character for her.  We then both concurred that J.K. Rowling had magical writing abilities to draw out his character development.

Our students need time to talk about what they’ve read, to transact with others who may affirm their thoughts and more importantly, who may challenge them and open them up to a new way of thinking.  In my first summer of the Spartanburg Writing Project, my book club that read and wrote under the influence of Barbara Kingsolver’s work that summer challenged my thinking and my writing in ways that grew me. 

In this month’s article, Allington states,  "..if we want to increase substantially the amount of reading that children do (and would I argue that this is one absolutely crucial step toward enhancing reading proficiency), it is important to give children books they can read and choices regarding which books they will read. Likewise, crafting a supportive conversational environment in which students talk to their teachers and to their peers about the books they are reading is an important component for sustaining increased reading. And active teaching of useful reading strategies expands the array of books that children are able to read. Finally, shifting evaluation to focus on effort and improvement enhances students' motivation for reading."  (Allington, 2002 pg. 8)

One of the strategies that Routman made in this chapter is to share your now and your next book and to have a record of your reading.  In my writer’s notebook I have a running list of books I’ve read so I can remember them for mentor texts and for the memories.

Each month I visit Mr. K’s Used Book store in Greenville (in Verdae Shopping Center off the Motor Mile) and buy my stack for the month.  Below is my picture of my Now Book stack.  Every single book in this stack was recommended to me by a friend.  Keri Lyles from Arcadia recommended Outlander (she was right, it is full of adventure, history, suspense, and a little romance too!).  A friend of mine I met in Kentucky when Tasha Thomas and I presented at a Writing Conference there recommended The Goldfinch to me on facebook and The Martian was highly recommended to me by my parents. 

Here is a picture of my Next Book Stack and both books on this list made the list through talking with others.  The Rick Bragg book is on my next stack because he is an all-time favorite of mine and two friends, Susan Cox and Pam Ray recommended this one to me recently.  The ESV Bible was given to me for Christmas by my husband Greg because two friends of mine recommended this translation to me. 

Other take aways for me from this chapter include:

*Favorite Author Area – page 30

*Baskets of Recommended books – page 30

*Keeping a Simple Reading Record – page 35

*Demonstrating How You Read and Your Love For Reading – page 36

Routman says on page 24 that it is important that we share our love of reading with our students.  “I want students to know I am compelled to read.  It is almost impossible for me not to read.  It’s much more than enjoying a well-told story, increasing my knowledge about the world, following directions, or say, understanding philosophy.  Reading pervades my life and sustains me the same way friendship and love do.  Reading gives me joy, comfort, perspective, new ideas, questions to ponder, and connections to other lives.  I want nothing less for my students.” (Routman, page 24)

I agree whole-heartedly.  #readersareleaders

Sincerely,

Dawn

Blog Post #5 Trina Lancaster Routman: Ch 5 Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library

          I wrote a Donors Choose grant that was funded right before Christmas. All month long I have been receiving books supplied through Amazon. It has been a delight to open each and every package! The students have been so excited to see the books as well. You see, these are the books they asked for. They wanted books about Peppa Pig, Daniel Tiger, Pete the Cat, Barbie, Thomas the Train, Hello Kitty and many more of their “friends” as they call the characters. Routman says, “If students are to choose to read and develop positive attitudes about reading, they must have access to engaging reading materials.” After seeing these students look at the books that were previously in my classroom library and watching them, now I really believe this is true. They are excited about getting their favorite books and even ask can they get them when we are doing other activities.

          Routman also stated that, “Classroom libraries are a literacy necessity; they are integral to successful teaching and learning and must become a top priority if our students are to become thriving, engaged readers.” I always knew that it was important to have books available for our students and that they needed to be something they were interested in reading but I never thought to purchase the books that Routman called “light reading” books. The books that the students want to read to get them hooked on books. For the most part the books in my classroom library are what I call “school books”, Routman called them “higher brow” stuff! Some books are award winners, books by well-known children writers or Scholastic. All are great books, and the kids like them when I read them, but seeing them with the books they asked for and loving them is a whole new experience for me! It makes my heart warm watching them!

          So far the books are in a tub, but after reading this selection I will get the students to help me organize them in a way that will be meaningful to them and see how it works out. Having a library for myself and one for the students gives me a little bit of a relief. Now I don’t have to worry about them tearing up my books because they don’t care about them, they love their books and are trying really hard to take great care with them. It really is amazing!

Blog Post #5  (Lisa L. Smith)

“Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library”

Reading Essentials     by:  Reggie Routman

“The availability of reading materials greatly impacts children’s literacy development.”  This is one of the most important points in the chapter.  Children must have access to good books of all kinds to develop the love of reading.  Helping students find books that interest them is essential in developing young readers.  The section on light reading and its importance hit very close to home for me.  Not necessarily with my four year olds, but my concern that my children did not necessarily want to read books that challenged them at their Lexile levels as they progressed through school.  They were more interested in books that appealed to them.  The importance of developing a love for reading far outweighs whether the book is “hard enough” for them. 

Creating a class library is challenging sometimes.  How do you organize it?  Can the students understand the structure of the organization (especially the younger ones)?  But organization is as important as including different genres (especially non-fiction, which is not typically featured in classroom libraries).  It is also extremely important to make classroom libraries appealing and comfortable.  No one wants to read in a cramped and uncomfortable environment.  We want the children to choose the library as their top destination.  Involving the students in the library design and organization can help give them ownership.  It can also help us look at how they see things and how the books can be most accessible and useful to them. 

Book display is also important.  The books must entice the reader to open them and look inside.  If all the students can see is the spine, the books do not beckon the reader.  There are multiple ways to organize the books in the classroom from rain gutters to baskets to bins.  The main point is that the books are displayed in a way that the children can see them, touch them, and choose them. 

I do have a classroom library.  I have it organized in bins, but it does not tend to stay organized as much as I would like.  However, because of our CDEP guidelines, I also have book bins in every single center.  This has been highly effective.  The children may be “playing in centers or interest areas”, but they pick books in the math center basket about counting and shapes.  The look at books in the science center about kinds of animals or dinosaurs or weather.  They look at books about buildings and structures in the block center and attempt to build the structures.  I think the classroom library is extremely important, but I have also found it highly effective to include book bins in every center.  It is amazing to watch the children choose the books, while engaging in play.  I must be honest, I wasn’t sure they would and was pleasantly surprised to see that they do.  

Samantha Guest Blog Post 5: Routman Chapter 8, Teach Comprehension

This chapter was all about teaching for comprehension right from the start. When you think about the main purpose of teaching, and comprehension is one of the most important reasons that we teach. We teach for students to learn and for them to comprehend the material being taught. We are always assessing for comprehension, but we should also be teaching for comprehension on a deep level. This chapter focused mainly on reading comprehension. There were several strategies listed that are key to achieve full understanding when reading. The key strategies listed are making connections, monitor for meaning, determine importance, visualize, ask questions, make inferences, and synthesize. I thought about these strategies in the eyes of my four year old students. Usually I am the one who reads books to them in our classroom so I think that it is my job to make sure these strategies for comprehension is being used effectively. I will often make connections during a shared reading by asking the class to share things about themselves, similar to what happened in the story. I will often have the class predict what they think will happen and make inferences about why before we start reading. At the end of the book we will always talk about what happened and what the importance of the story was. These are just a few examples of how I use these strategies in my own classroom. I also learned that when selecting texts for my students it's important to remember to use texts that are easy enough and meaningful enough to support comprehension. I have to make sure that the texts are on their level to support not only their understanding, but their enjoyment of reading.