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.