Small Group Reading: Guided Reading Group

When we begin small group time, they gather their response notebooks and a pencil and meet me at my reading table.  I conduct a traditional guided reading lesson with this group.  I usually use articles or shorter texts.  Our district has adopted the Journey's reading program by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  With that program came shorter guided reading texts that pair with each weeks main basal selection.  

My district literacy team firmly believes in the principle of teaching students at their instructional guided reading levels and therefore, do not want us teaching the books that are paired, just because they are paired.  We are to choose books that meet student need and instructional level.  So, I choose the books that are at each groups instructional level and that focus on comprehension skills that were taught the previous week.  For example, if we focused on the skill of main idea and the strategy of inference last week, I'd look to choose a short book that had these as a focus as well at the instructional level of my students.  This gives me opportunity to reinforce in a guided group the topics we learned as a whole class the week before.  I spend about 20 minutes with this group.  

The lesson plan I base my lessons on was created by my district from the teachings of Fountas and Pinnell.  You can see it here. 

Empty boxes waiting for new supplies.

They sit atop the three bookshelves I have in my room for the classroom library.

I have my students keep their reading items in these magazine boxes I purchased from Ikea.  There's five boxes in a pack for about $2, I believe.  They're super popular.  Last time I went to my Ikea, about 40 miles away, they were completely out of them.  Luckily, it's near my parents, so I'll keep checking back when I visit them.  I need a couple to replace some that got ruined last year.  You can see though, that I'll be able to re-use most of boxes from last year.  I just labeled each with student numbers. 

Students keep their reading response notebook, literature circle book and any other book from our class library that they are reading in this box.  I don't allow students to keep reading books in their desks to keep them from being ruined by larger text books, snacks or water spills.  It also makes it quick and easy for students to find what they need for reading time. 

How do you organize student materials for small group reading? What type of lessons do you teach during small group reading?

Reading in the Wild Summer Book Study Chapter 2

I am loving this book by Donalyn Miller.  The more I read, the more I love it.  Chapter 2 is focused on getting students to select reading material.  One of the main focuses of this chapter is on teacher read alouds.  

I LOVE reading aloud to my students and I'm always amazed at how much they pay attention while I read.  Students love it too.  It seems a few years ago there was quite the controversy as to whether time should be "wasted" in the classroom on read alouds.  I think many teachers knew the value of it and found ways to make it happen.  

I was never asked to drop read aloud, but was asked to make in "meaningful" by incorporating think alouds and comprehension discussions during the read aloud.  I think, however, that sometimes we just need to read for fun.  Students aren't going to learn the pleasure of reading themselves if they never have the opportunity to just read for pleasure.  For this reason, the sole purpose of my read aloud time is enjoyment. We do some light discussion generally, but it's not required and not the sole purpose of our reading.

Here's a list of the books I read to my class last year: (Links will take you to the books on Amazon.)

The Hundred Dresses

I start most years out with this one to establish a tone of community with my class. 

The Witches

Whole class, everyone had a copy.  I used this one a little differently than other read alouds, it's my model for responding in our reading journals and intro lessons to comprehension strategies.

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

I was able to attend a presentation by Kate DiCamillo in September 2014 where she talked about her new book.  So fun to hear all the background behind the story.  My students laughed through this book. 

Wonder

New to me this year, and wonderful!

Out of My Mind

New to me this year, recommended by a teammate, fabulous!

Because of Mr. Terupt

Again, new to me, recommended by Jen of Runde's Room, my students loved it.  There's a sequel that I opted not to read to my students nor have in my classroom library because of the nature of some of the situations.  The sequel might be best for Jr. High aged students. 

Next year I'm planning to start out with:

 The Hundred Dresses 

and then 

Maniac Magee, 

which will be the whole class shared reading like I did with The Witches.

Then we'll do a brand new book, The Fourteenth Goldfish, which comes out in August.

I was so blessed to receive an advanced copy of this book to read.  I stayed up all night last Tuesday to read it. I highly suggest it to any 3-6 student or class.  I'm joining the Global Read Aloud, which you can learn more about here.

What are your favorite read aloud books?

Notice and Note Post 12

 Here are my notebook pages for Again and Again and Memory Moment.  I mentioned in Post 11 that I didn't write down as much of my own reflection with these last ones, hoping that students will do more on their own.  If you weren't aware, most of the printables for the text selections from the book can be found online on the publisher's website here.  They're in easy to print PDF format.  There's one or two missing due to copyright, but I easily found them online with a quick search. 

Be sure to read the host post by Meg of The Teacher Studio here and any other posts that have been linked up. 

What did you learn from the Again and Again and Memory Moment signposts? 

Notice ant Note Post 11

First, I need to finish Post 10.  Here are the pictures of my response notebook for Aha Moment

Two page spread

Left side close

Right side under the text glue-in

Then I thought I needed lessons on Theme and Conflict, so here are my pages for those.  

The glue-ins come from two great sets.  Theme is from Nicole Shelby's set here and Conflict is from Lovin' Lit's set here.

Now, for the two signposts in Post 11.  Here are the pictures of my response notebook for Tough Questions: 

Left side explanation and beginning of response. Right side, response continued and text glue-in.

Then I thought I needed a lesson on question types to help students generate their own questions as well as analyze the questions within text.  So, here's my page on QAR.  I created the foldable using a template from 4mulafun's foldable set found here.  

Finally, here's Words of the Wiser:

I left the reflections blank where students are more on their own in the lesson.  Now that we've done a few, I'm hoping students will be able to do more on their own.  

Be sure to read the host post for this section from Mary at Guided-Math here and any of the other posts that have been linked up. 

There we go, we just have 2 more posts in this blog book study left.  I have LOVED it!  What did you learn about Tough Questions and Words of the Wiser? 

Notice and Note Post 10: Contrasts and Contradictions

Heather at 2 Brainy Apples did a great job of sharing the ideas from Notice and Note: Contrasts and Contradictions and Aha Moment.  I wanted to share with you my reading notebook entry that I planned for my students.  To help me do better with notebooks this next year, I'm planning entries and writing them down myself.  I realize that they may end up a bit different when I actually teach them, but they'll be planned and I'll have a good idea of what will be helpful for the students.  

Two page spread of C&C notebook entry.

I started with an overview entry so students will have the main idea of each of the signposts in their notebooks.  I included a section briefly explaining what the signpost is, then the question that should be asked.  I also included a sentence connecting the signpost to comprehension strategies. 

Left side of notebook.

The second section of this notebook entry is the responses for the lesson outlined in this chapter based on the short story Thank YOu M'am by Langston Hughes.  I didn't want to waste half a page, so I just sectioned it off with a colored squiggle line.  The lesson basically stops 4 times to ask the question " Why is the character doing that?"  In my notebook, I wrote the responses I had at each stop.  Students will include their own responses as we move through the lesson.  

Right side of notebook with a peek at the text. 

Part of the lesson includes having students mark in the text.  I debated on whether to include the text in their notebook, but finally decided to include it.  I wanted the text there for reference since this was an anchor lesson.  When students go back to remind themselves of Contrasts and Contradictions, they'll have the text as well to see how the signpost worked here.  So, I just folded the short story in half and glued it in along the top edge of the back page.  

Right side of notebook under the text glue in. 

Since this signpost focuses on character, I decided my next mini-lesson would be on characters.  I'm debating whether to teach this lesson before the signpost, we'll see in August,  The character cut-out and page idea is from the Reading Notebook by Nicole Shelby.  I also have her Language Notebook set that I'll be using in writing lessons throughout the year.  

I'll continue with my notebook entry for Aha Moment in the next post and link it here when it is live. How will you be teaching your students about Contrasts and Contradictions? 

Small Group Reading: Listening

The next activity I'm sharing with you in my mini-series about small group reading time is listening.

My school has invested in a a few sets of listening book sets that contain an audio cd of the book and 8 copies of the text.  We listen to novels and I assign a section each week, usually dividing the book into 8 sections so we are finished at the same time as genre activities.  

With mp3 players, each student is in charge of his/her own listening and can go back when needed and start and stop as needed.  Here's how I've organized my listening activity station for this next year. 

I wanted a way to be able to quickly see that all MP3 players were returned and kept in an organized and safe way.  I'll have a full post of how I made the pockets work for me on a Monday Made it post next Monday.  The basket on the counter will hold the books for students to grab.  The sign on the wall is an enlarged version of the reference card that came with the players.   I numbered each player so it gets back to it's organized spot. 

At our school registration this year, we'll be asking that students bring in their own pair of ear buds or headphones.  These will be kept in a ziploc bag, marked with the student's name, in their reading boxes.  This way, students are responsible for their own listening headphone device and we don't share ear germs. 

You can read about how I organized my listening center in my first grade classroom here.  

I've used a few different types of MP3 players over the years.  They have to be cheap, user friendly, chargeable (no batteries), and somewhat durable.  Knowing that cheap and chargeable are my two top priorities, durability can be somewhat questionable and I understand that when I purchase.  This is the first year my school has provided the players for me.  I'm super happy about that because my previous set was starting to have a few get broken. (I've had my first set for about 4 years.) Here's the style of players that my new set is. Note that they do need an additional SD card added to them, they don't have on board memory.

This will take you to an Amazon listing of a 4 pack, which is what we ordered. 

I love mp3 players for listening.  Cd players with multiple headphones were a pain for me.  The group had to wait for everyone to arrive before starting and there always seemed to be an argument about something.  Sometimes, you might find a recording or video of a book online that you want students to have access to to listen.  If you don't have a tablet or computer for a small group of students in your classroom, you might consider using this splitter. You just plug it into your audio output in one computer and then connect headphones in each of the ports.  Then several students could follow along to an audio on your computer.  If you click on the picture, you'll be taken to view this product on Amazon. 

I"m still deciding whether to have my students respond to their listening station this year.  I do meet with the group for about 10 minutes toward the end of the reading block to discuss the section they listened to.  Last year, students answered a few questions, and I think that helped them be better listeners and focus, knowing they needed to answer questions.  My teammate, however, doesn't require students to respond.  She uses listening as the student's enjoyable reading time.  What are your thoughts?  Should students respond to their listening or should it be a more relaxable reading experience? How do you set up your listening activity station?