Be a Guided Reading Master!

Hi everyone! We've officially been on break for a week, and it. Is. Glorious. I've had the opportunity to spend tons of time with my own kiddos at the Field Museum and the zoo, READ for myself (currently The Goldfinch... I'm liking it, but I quickly realized why it was taking FOREVER to move along on my Kindle... The book is nearly 800 pages!), and to fall asleep while putting my kids to sleep - and not feel guilty.

One thing I do want to make a concerted effort to do is to prep for next year way in advance so my to do list at the end of August isn't a mile long. Well, it probably will be anyways, but I'll make a dent while I'm much less stressed!

Anyways, one thing that was on my to do list ALL YEAR that is DONE is my leveled guided reading lesson plans!

Guided reading is hands-down my favorite part of the day. FAVORITE. It's such a great way to really interact with each student, to help them in a very specific way, and to see results from all our hard work.

One thing that kinda revolutionized my prep for guided reading was preparing lessons for each book, rather than for the group of students. It sounds kind of odd. We teach students, not the book, right? But in my personal and school library of guided reading books, I can think of very specific skills that align perfectly with certain books. For example, when my beginning of the year firsties need to work on predictions supported with information from the text, I pull out "Where's the Baby?" (in the AlphaKids series by Sundance... The best guided reading book ever. And it's a level D people!) When I know the book well, and have planned for that book well, I'm better at making quick instructional decisions with the students in front of me.

I feel like, especially as my students reach more challenging reading levels, I'm not always sure what skills are level-appropriate for my students. I want to make sure I'm using challenging teaching and questioning skills to really build up my students' abilities as readers and thinkers.

So, that's where these lesson plans come into play.

I've broken down skills in the following areas for each guided reading level from A through M:

• Word work - I do this right before the lesson, and link it to words they'll find in the text
• Vocab preview
• Before reading - Activating prior knowledge, noticing text features, etc.
• During reading - These are especially focused on accuracy, fluency, and self-monitoring for comprehension
• After reading - With questions/skills that are more literal as well as higher-level

For an early kindergartener...

And for an early second grader...

Just add guided reading books and you'll be ready to go!

This pack can be found {HERE}, but I'll also give away a free copy to the first person to comment with their email address.

Have a great day!

Five for Friday... A Day Late!

Well, I'm finally back with a post! I'm going to try to start posting more than once a month! :) Last week grades for first quarter were due, and that basically consumed my life... So now that that's over, there's a bit more time to take pictures, blog, and breathe.

I'm linking up with Five for Friday (a day late!) to share with you what we did this week!

1. We've been working hard in guided reading! We use the second half of our reader's notebooks to write about our reading during guided reading. With my below level students, we spend a LOT of time doing guided writing, where we work together to write a sentence or two about our text each time we meet. While I help model the writing, the students are sounding out and writing in their own notebooks. (Note: I have gotten VERY good at writing upside down!) I've also made little on-the-fly word family flip books with my students (within their notebooks), previewing a word they'll see a lot in the text. It's good reinforcement of a sight word, understanding how to use a chunk we know to figure out new words, and this is a quick tactile way for students to practice making words.

2. We've started learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans in social studies. I started the unit by providing students with photographs (from the Scholastic First Thanksgiving website) of a Pilgrim homesite and Wampanoag village (through their Virtual Field Trip resources) and artifacts from the Lakeshore Native American Resource Box. Students worked in groups to record their observations and inferences about what they saw. They didn't know we were going to be learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans before we did this, so I also had them guess what we'd be studying based on the photos and artifacts.

3. In reading, we focused a LOT on using schema when reading nonfiction books. I know a lot of people use a T-chart (What I Know/What I Learned) to track prior knowledge and new learning, but I really like using a web. It gives the opportunity for students to more easily notate corrected misconceptions (see the "have gills" part of the web in the upper right corner) and to add to schema by branching off of a part of the web (like the "have a blowhole on their back" portion on the left).

4. We are adding to our CRAFT menu with our new reading strategies! I used Ladybug's Teacher Files' CRAFT board as a modified version of the CAFE menu. I also reworded some of the strategies we've added to be more first grade friendly. (I wish my bulletin board was a bit wider... Those are too close together for my liking!)

5. I am FINALLY feeling better after a rough week with little to no voice. How cute is this letter from one of my sweeties?!

Have a great weekend!

Free Rubrics for Guided Reading and Daily 5... And a Pending Giveaway?

First of all, I'm home today with the FLU. Yuck. Double yuck. All last week, I had no fewer than 4 kiddos gone each day. I Lysoled, I Cloroxed, I Purelled... But I, too, have been attacked by the flu bug.

I'm hoping a little R&R will let me be back in the classroom tomorrow!

I thought this would be a good chance for me to post a couple freebies that hopefully will help some of you all with assessments (particularly as we reach the end of second quarter - and grading/comments loom overhead)!

First, this freebie is a guided reading rubric to assess your students on a range of key skills and behaviors.

And here's a freebie rubric to assess your kiddos as they use the Daily 5.

You can click on either image to download from Google Drive, or hit up my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking {here}.

I am currently at 79 followers - just 21 more till the big 100! I plan to do a big giveaway here when I hit that mark, so if you or anyone you know might be interested in donating a product for the giveaway, please let me know by clicking {here}.

I'm linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies!


Happy Monday!

Daily 5 for Firsties!

I've used Daily 5 in my first grade classroom for the past four and a half years, and I must say I absolutely LOVE how it really encourages independence among my kiddos. It takes quite a while to establish (usually about 5-6 weeks), but once it is up and running, it sustains itself. (Okay, so there's usually a few times a year - particularly after breaks - when we need to review expectations, but hey, that's to be expected with six and seven year olds!)

If you have not yet read The Daily 5 book, I would HIGHLY recommend it! It's a quick and easy read. I'll be posting some documents this summer to help with planning and implementing D5 in your classroom, including a guide to the first few weeks of school and corresponding books that work well to teach CAFE strategies (if you choose to integrate CAFE and D5).

Anywho, I thought I'd post a file you might find helpful - a Daily 5 choice recording sheet!

Click {HERE} to download!

Before each round of Daily 5, I call the kiddos to the rug, tell them which reading group I'm meeting with during that round (I use color groups - red group, orange group, etc.), and I quickly mark a "T" in the square for that round for the kids in my reading group (a T for TEACHER since I'm meeting with those students). I then alternate between starting at the top, middle, and bottom of the list of students. I list the students in alpha order by last name, so starting at different points in the list allows students the opportunity to have a chance to choose earlier in the selection process, increasing the likelihood they'll get their top choice.

It takes a bit of practice, but the students get VERY good at calling out their choice - I can typically get through the class of 30 students in less than two minutes. As I'm calling names and writing choices, I keep track mentally of how many listening students there are (since we have a limited number of computers and Tag Readers). I also track if we have an even or odd number of students doing Read to Someone. After I've called all students to pick their first choice, I call students who are doing Listening to move to their choice (this clears some kids off the rug and allows time for students to make sure they can log into the computer and get started before I start meeting with a reading group). Then I call all students who chose Read to Someone, then the remaining three choices. 

As I'm finishing my reading group, I clap to signal time to clean up that activity, we meet back at the rug, and we repeat making our D5 choices. I don't allow students to choose the same choice two days in a row, which means that every other day, students are doing ALL the choices. (This year, I only did two rounds, but next year, with a longer school day, I'll have the chance to take three groups and thus three rounds of D5. So my most proficient students, who I meet with less, will probably repeat one choice every other day. Not too bad.)

PHEW! Okay, that was an unnecessarily wordy explanation. I'll post more soon with more files, including the calendar/organizer for the first few weeks of school!