Guided Reading Series: The first 6 weeks

So often, teachers want to know how do I start my groups?  How do I teach them to do what I want them to at the center?  How do I get them to listen?

The first 6 weeks of guided reading are the most crucial for setting up consistency and routine.  This is when you are teaching them HOW to be in centers.  You are NOT pulling any groups at this point. 

Jan Richardson has an amazing schedule for those first 6 weeks.  This is what I live by.  If you have been following this series, you will already know that I make my groups heterogeneous, so the actual grouping does not matter those first few weeks.  Just make sure they are groups that will behave well together.

The first step is to find 5 centers that do not actually require any learning or knowledge.  These are TEMPORARY centers.  This was the hardest part for me to get past.  It is that realization that I am going to allow them to play for 30 minutes or so every day during reading time.  It seemed like such a waste of my ever so precious time.  But I promise you it is SO worth it!  This 30 minutes a day will set you up for real uninterrupted learning for the rest of the year.

The centers that I use are:  coloring books, puzzles, building blocks, pattern blocks, and unifix cubes.  I know lots of these are math tubs, but I am killing two birds with one stone here, because they get time to play in the math tubs before we begin math centers!  You could also use a play area if you are a lower grade that has imaginary play centers.


Here is the schedule for week 1:

 You can see that these are just for fun centers.  This week is for teaching students to stay at the center they have been assigned.  It is for teaching them that they are not done until you say that center time is over.  Time for teaching students that they must continue working the entire time.  During this week I keep my center time at 10-15 minutes.  Students have to build up their stamina.  Each week, I will add a few more minutes to their center time until I can get them to the 20-30 minute time that I will normally have allotted. 


Week 2: 

Week 2 I introduce my first center.  This is usually an easy center like listening center.  I do not teach the center whole group.  I teach the center to each individual group.  Before splitting into centers, we go over the rules that we learned from last week.  Then I sit with the group that will be doing the literacy center.  I explain how to take out the center, how to complete the center, and how to put the center away.  Meanwhile, I should be able to simply monitor the other groups during this time.


Week 3:

 

Week 3 I introduce another center.  Again, I usually try something easier such as word work.  Students can use the words that we have been reviewing from the previous year (or their names if they are Kindergarten).  

I review the rules and last week's center with the whole group before splitting into centers.  Then, I spend about 2 minutes with the group that is doing Literacy Center 1 just to make sure they remember how to do everything.  Then I travel to the new group that is learning Literacy Center 2.  We, again, go over how to take out the materials for the center, how to complete the center, and how to clean up.

Week 4:

Week 4 I introduce another center, following the same routines as before.  I do a quick check in with last week's new center group and then head over to introduce the new center.  By this point, students should be starting to build a stamina and an understanding for the routine.

Week 5:

Week 6:

By weeks 5 and 6 you may be able to begin pulling students for some testing and/or running records.  This really depends on your group of students, but I often find that my kids start to get the hang of it by this point.  I can introduce the center and then pull a couple students for assessing.  It also helps that by this point, students are pretty much up to the full 20-30 minutes that you have allotted. 

One other tip:  I usually save my library center as one of the last centers that I introduce.  I know that this may seem silly to some because it is such an easy center.  My reasoning for this is that I want to get to know my students before introducing them to my books.  I want to know their reading levels so that I can help them find good books.  And I want them to really understand how important it is to take care of our books.  Saving it for last builds up their anticipation of it and helps them to "cherish" it a little more. They realize that it is special to me and so it becomes special to them.

After your fist 6 weeks, students will be ready to begin doing 2 and 3 centers a day.  They will also learn how to do other centers.  You can introduce more than those original 5 through mini lessons.  You can also add new activities to each center that you can introduce through mini lessons.  For example, in word work center, you may just begin with stamps.  Then you will add in stencils and play dough later.


These first 6 weeks are the time when you are training your kids.  Think of it as boot camp!  Show them the ropes and keep it consistent!

Guided Reading Series: Centers and Organization, part 3

Today I am going to share some tips for center time.

First, make the centers so that they DON'T END!  They need to be open ended centers so that your students don't ever get the chance to "finish early."  One of my biggest pet peeves is when children say "I'm done!" long before I am ready for them to be done.  During center time, my students are never allowed to say "I'm done."  They are not done until I say they are done!

One of the easiest center examples is library.  Students can read a variety of books during library center.  You may even have some graphic organizers for students to fill out about what they are reading.

Another center I have is the sight word center.  This center is stacked full of activities that students can choose from.  If they finish one, they get out another.  I change it out every so often with new sight words but it is a never ending center.  Students can hunt for words in one of my many Spot and Jot pictures.  They can create sight words from play dough. They can search for sight words in a book they have been reading.  They can play sight word Tic-Tac-Toe.  They can Read and Write the room.  So many choices.

I also have a Superkids center.  We use Superkids as our "reading program" in our school.  While it is not my favorite, it does have some good things about it.  While this center is directed towards Superkids in my school, it could be directed toward Journeys or Harcourt or whatever you might be using.  In this center, students get with a partner and partner read their choice of one of the stories from the basal (it must be a story that we have already read together as a class).  Then they may choose to do a graphic organizer about the story or one of the other activities that I have.  I took photos of the pictures of each story from the basal that we read.  I glued them to index cards and labeled them with the name of the story on the back.  Students can use these cards for sequencing, retelling, or writing (pick a picture and write what is happening in the picture).  I also laminated several of the sorts that came with the series and put them in this center.  These sorts were blackline masters that were supposed to just be extra worksheets for the kids.  Instead, I put them in a center.

Daily 5 also provides some great center ideas so that students can stay focused and working through the entire center time.
They include:

• Read to Self  (Library Center)
• Read to Someone (Partner Reading)
• Work on Writing (Writing Center)
• Listen to Reading (Listening Center)
• Word Work  (Spelling, Phonics, Sight Words)

Some other centers that I used include Computer Center and Fluency center.  At the computer center, students get to use the Chrome books.  They LOVE RAZkids, Superkids, and Starfall.  For fluency center, students have fluency folders that they can practice with a partner, sentence strips that they can practice, or fluency games that they can play.  You can check out how I do fluency folders here.  I got the fluency games from The Moffatt Girls and my kiddos love them!  I just laminated them so that they could be used over and over with dry erase markers.

What centers are your favorite?

Guided Reading Series: Centers and Organization Part 2

 Today I am going to share with you a very simple organization tip for your centers.

Since I prefer to have students come back together in between each center, I need my centers to be easy to get in and out.  If you missed last week's post about how I schedule this, be sure to check it out!

I keep each center in a basket or a large plastic envelope.  This way one student from each group can go to the bookcase, pick it up, and take it to their designated "spot" in the room.  Students can work on the center and then return everything to the basket or envelope.  Once done, the student returns it the shelf in it's proper spot. 

You can see my shelf doesn't always look neat, but believe it or not it stays pretty organized! 

• The kids have everything that they need for each center in the basket. 
• I don't have to keep centers all around the room...they all stay in one place.
• My carpet/center spaces can be used for other activities throughout the day since they stay clear of reading center materials!

Guided Reading Series: Centers and Organization, part 1

One of the most common questions that I get about guided reading groups, is how do you manage the other kids while you are working with a group?

Then, I say "centers" and they say "Well, duh! But how???"

I must say that I used to DESPISE center time. And it was for all of the same reasons as you.  It was so much to manage. So much to organize. What about the kids that are not independent learners yet?  How do you get them to actually DO the centers and not just goof around the entire time?  What about accountability? 

We'll today I have some answers for you! 

Now, this is not a fool proof answer.  You are still going to have those "moments."  Those moments when you want to pull your hair out and just give up because nothing is going well.  You will still have that kid...you know the one.  The one that refuses to do anything you say merely because he can.  That kid that looks directly at you while simultaneously dumping out all of your so neatly organized center tubs.  Yes, it is inevitable.  It will happen.  But my goal today is to merely give you some ideas for making these moments fewer and further between.

The first step to centers is organizing a schedule.  This is a two part step: rotation schedule and group schedule.  

For rotation schedules, I used to have students rotate with the kids in their reading group.  So what happened? My highest kids were bored, finished early, and then began loud conversations.  My lowest kids had no idea how to complete the task and ended up playing in the materials or having wrestling matches on the floor.  This was not working.

This year, I went with heterogeneous groups.  I have my students sitting in groups throughout the day anyway, so when arranging desks I take into consideration the levels of my students as well as how they get along.  This becomes their center group. They work with this group during each center and then I pull students to my table from there.  So each group, or "table" as I call them, may have one member coming to my table for instruction at any given time.

You can see in this picture my table groupings. This is an older picture.  There are now signs above each group saying what table number they are.  They work with these groups for center time and then I pull the kids that I need for my small group!

How does this help? Now I have a mix of levels that can help one another with the task.  My higher students can explain how to do the center or remind students of what to do, if necessary.  They work so much better together this way. It is by far one of the BEST things I have ever done with my groups!

Here is a snapshot of my center rotation schedule:

You can see that the numbers represent my tables (Table 1, Table 2, etc).  In the afternoons, several students are pulled for reading remediation. Therefore, I do not have as many students in my class for that third small group time. This means that I only do one center during that time, since there is a much smaller group.

The second part is setting up your actual schedule for center time.  For this, I used to have students go from one center to the next center to the next.  You know what happened? About halfway through the second set of centers, my kids lost focus.  They were no longer interested.  They were tired.  They stopped working and started playing.  

So how to fix it? This year I began breaking up my whole group reading lesson into chunks.  We are required to do Superkids at my school (this is our basal reading program). So rather than doing an hour of Superkids and then an hour of centers/groups, I started alternating.  I now do about 30 minutes of Superkids, followed by a center/group.  Then I do 20-30 more minutes of Superkids followed by another center/group.  Then we have our lunch break and come back for my last center/group time.  If I didn't already have that lunch break built in, I would put a group before Superkids instead (group, Superkids, group, Superkids, group). 

How does this help?  It gives students a break.  Students cannot focus on instruction for an hour at a time.  They need breaks in between so they don't lose that focus.  This helps because after one center, I can pull them back together with me to do an activity before sending them out to centers again.  This also means that I can go over the rules/expectations again before each center if necessary.  It helps students to refocus each time!

Here is my weekly schedule so that you can see how many groups I have and how many times I meet with each group.  Each group has a different color for its name and I spend Monday afternoons progress monitoring and assessing.

Doing these two things will make a huge difference in your guided reading time.  If you don't take anything else way from this guided reading series, it should be that!

Other organizational tips have to do with the center materials themselves.  Those will come in next week's post for part 2!

Guided Reading Series: My Toolkit, What's inside?

So what should be included in your toolkit?  Let's take a closer look!

These are a number one necessity to have handy.  I have enough for each of my students to have one as well as myself.  We use these to practice writing letters, words, sentences, dictation, encoding for sounds, vocabulary, sight words, character traits, etc.  You name it!

 I have both dry erase boards and dry erase sentence strips (that I picked up from the Dollar Tree!)

My students love to use all different kinds of pointers for tracking their reading.  These are one of their favorites and they are merely drink stirrers, but we call them "swivel sticks" because they are so "swively" and fun! 

You can also get finger lights at the Dollar Tree:

Or witch's fingers are a fun thing to have around too:

On a side note, I generally only allow students to use pointers when they are in the early stages of reading.  Once they become more transitional/fluent readers, they should no longer need pointers to help them track.  Then we switch to index cards to build fluency.  More on that later....

Ready to go for guided writing!  For emergent readers, practice letter formation and student names.  For early readers, practice encoding for sounds, CVC words, sight words, dictation, and open ended sentences.  For transition and fluency readers, begin composing sentences on their own.  It can be a story or a reflection of their reading.  Have them write the problem and solution.  Or the beginning, middle, and end.

These are a ton of fun.  I use these for students to hunt for words within their books.  They can hunt for a particular sight word, a word with a phonetic sound you are working on, a vocabulary word, etc.  You can pick up the cut outs for free in my store! 

Great for writing out vocabulary and sight words that need to be learned for the story that is read.  Also for helping students to build fluency!

I use these in so many ways and my kids LOVE when I put a highlighter in their hands!  For my lower kids, it is a great way to do a sight word hunt or a hunt for a phonetic sound.  For my higher kids, we will use these to hunt for evidence of a comprehension question. We also use them to highlight punctuation when working on fluency.

 
Some of my best interventions for low readers involve building words with letter tiles, letter cards, and letter cubes.   These are great for decoding words, encoding words, building sight words, and word ladders.

 
I created these as a tool for teaching students to chunk sounds.  It is a great decoding tool and a quick skill to do during each guided reading lesson.

I use stamps and stickers mostly for concept of word review.  We use them as stepping stones under each word as we read.  It gives students a  place to put their finger while tracking. 

I keep several sets of sight word cards handy for quick review games!

 

I love giving students picture cards for practicing different skills.  We use these for phoneme segmentation, encoding for sounds, guided writing, etc.

I like to incorporate some Words Their Way into my guided reading lessons, as often times, the spelling skills that we are required to do with our reading program is not on the level that my students need.  I have learned that the easiest way to do this is to have several sets of sorts ready to go.  I copy them, cut them, and paper clip them so that we don't waste any time getting materials prepared during our lesson.  Then I gather them up to save for future use with another group!  It takes time to put them all together and prepare, but save SO much time in the end!

Plus, I don't just limit myself to Words Their Way sorts.  We also do concept sorts, picture sorts, grammar sorts, rhyming matching cards, etc.