Taking on Second : Guided Reading

Since we stopped doing {Accelerated Reader} I have been on the search high and low for ways to keep my students engaged in reading. I thought, Let them choose! That's gotta be the way, right?! Kind of... Except when the best reader in the class only wants to read about Biscuit... Today we finally tried {book talks}!

For morning work, one of my kiddo's jobs was to read a book or chapter of a book. They had to fill out their book talk page so they could be ready to tell others about what they read and why they should read it.

The students loved hearing about their friends books and why they liked the story so far. It was fun to hear them asking each other MORE questions about their books!

This page comes from my {Reading with a Purpose} pack, but you can get this page, plus book talk pages for nonfiction and problem and solution for {FREE}!

Head over to my {Teachers Pay Teacher's store} to grab your FREEBIE!

Aimee

I have been doing the Daily 5 for both of the years I have been teaching. This gives me a chance to meet with small groups through the week! I love my small group time. I have a horseshoe table that allows me to sit comfortably and be surrounded by my kiddos! I got the opportunity to do a product swap with Miss Dianna over at Sassy, Savvy Simple Teaching! This is my second "big bloggy" activity I have gotten to be involved with! I am so glad The Primary Gal is so connected and is giving me the hook up!

Click here to check it out at TPT!

Dianna put together a great reading bundle! The first one her Guided Reading Skills and Observations Checklist. I <3 checklists! This one has quickly become part of my top ten list of favorite checklists It includes 6 checklists based on Guided Reading Levels. Each checklist is driven towards specifics reading behaviors & comprehension questions. Each checklist allows me to keep track of the student's reading behaviors for six different times. This sure helps save paper and I can compare new times with the old! I can track their behaviors based on their appropriate Guided Reading Level.

Here are a couple of the examples on the differentiation. Love it!

Each checklist has a list of comprehension questions too. This is so handy when my mind blanks and I cannot think of what to ask as quickly as I would like!

The second part to the bundle is her Guided Reading that will help you get organized and start your small groups/guided reading groups. It even has mini anchor charts that are chevron!(That is kinda my thing if you hadn't guessed:)) She even includes a Guided Reading cheat sheet to help you figure out what you should do on what days! I got my new guided reading group papers organized in my handy dandy binder last week. I started using them this week! There are a couple pages that help you organize the students you want in your groups. You could organize them by skill level, guided reading level, daily 5 groups, or whatever works for you! I sort my students by skill level and call them to the table during Daily 5 time. Students usually meet with me for a group and a half. We rotate every ten minutes or so.

I haven't quite nailed the whole teacher handwriting... sorry:)

Once my students were seated, I handed out the leveled readers that came with our Journeys reading series. For my lower group, I have a more specific outline of what we are working on. I can list student names, sight, vocab, and review words, and what skills we will use for before, during, and after reading the story. I can also add notes for each day. The page I used for my higher groups was a comprehension guide. It lists all kinds of comprehension skills that should be worked on through out the school year. I circled the ones that were our main focus for this week. I can also list notes on this page. Along will my guide pages, I have individual pages for my groups that allow me rate how the students are doing with comprehension, fluency, unknown word strategies, and sight words. I use this for all my groups! As my students are reading, I can easily rate them from 1-3 on how well they are doing. This helps me assess what we need to focus on the next time my group meets.