Today I was lucky enough to begin in a classroom and model both shared and guided reading. It is so different to go into classrooms where I don't know the students; unlike when I had my class and I could predict how the students would respond to questions and be able to catch most behavior problems before they occurred. I made sure to begin the lesson with a quick assessment using red/green cards. I do not know if the students were comfortable with holding up the red side of the card to admit they were unsure about the statements I made. It was a little difficult to get a full class assessment using this method today (this may be more effective after I visit the classroom and build relationships with the students). Below is the lesson plan for day one shared reading:
The pre assessment ended up taking longer than I had planned, so I needed to rethink my plans for the next day. We also did not have time to write a story chart in our reader response notebooks because we took extended time on our discussion about the pre assessment prompt.
Based on the running record data I collected I decided to spend a day on vocabulary with the guided reading groups. I usually jump right into the text during guided reading, but I noted that the students could use support with "debugging" the words before we got started. I also wanted to get to know the students as readers and so for me I like to talk about strategies they use when confronting an unknown word. After meeting with the small groups, I decided to rework the groups for Tuesday. I moved some of the students around so that they would be successful in the text I placed them in (Thank goodness for flexible grouping!).
I was a bit disappointed with how I scaffolded the first two groups I met with in guided. After the lesson I met with the reading specialist to see how I could increase the small group conversation with the groups that need a bit more support. She suggested that before scaffolding the questions/prompts I give the students, I should narrow down the text, sentence-by-sentence if I need to. The last two groups I met with seemed excited about the text I gave them and were reading to annotate like crazy and talk about patterns within the text.
I think it will go much more smoothly tomorrow now that I have completed running records with most students as well as asked comprehension questions. I have a better idea about how the students are as readers.
