One of my assignments this past week was to read the Best Practices in Reading chapter in Best
Practice for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools by Zemelman, Daniels
& Hyde. I enjoyed reading this chapter
for a couple of different reasons:
1.)
It put my mind at ease in letting me know that I
am doing some things right. J I think that I do a pretty good job of
teaching specific reading skills such as: visualizing, connecting, questioning,
inferring, evaluating, analyzing, recalling and monitoring. I also think that I do a pretty good job at
creating an environment where children feel safe to take reading risks and
share their thoughts, feelings and ideas.
2.)
It reminded me of several various reading components
(that I’m not heavily focused on) that are important to intentionally expose
the children to each day.
With that being said, I choose 5 key ideas that I am excited
to do a better job at incorporating into my reading instruction for next
year.
Read Aloud Stories
After reading this chapter, I feel
like I need to do more read alouds, encouraging the students to choose the
books I read aloud and allowing more time for them to talk about and interact
with the text. Modeling what good
readers sound like is something that I don’t intentionally speak of when
reading aloud during whole group. Next
year I want to specifically point out and talk about the strategies that I am
using during my read aloud time. I also
want to use and display my reading posters that go along with the strategies
that I am teaching.
Reading for Choice
In the ½ day K setting, I tend to heavily
focus my instruction on phonics and phonemic awareness. I do a lot of choosing books for them- that
are at their “just right” reading level.
Because of time restrictions and the amount of students that I have, I
don’t give the children much time to choose books to read for enjoyment. The only time that they get to read books for
enjoyment is if they get done with an activity early or I need a quick &
easy, short time to fill. Next year I’m
thinking of having them take 1 or 2 books of interest to put in their book bag
to read at independent reading time. That
way they are getting their hands on books that are at their reading level and
books that they enjoy reading.
Free Choice & Independent Reading
This past year I didn’t set much
time set aside for independent reading.
I wanted each student to have a “book bag” like I have done in the past,
but with the amount of students I had, lack of time, lack of storage space and
lack of leveled readers for all of my students, the students did not have their
own book bag to utilize. Next year, I am
excited to get back into that routine. I
am excited for each student to be getting the books that they need at their
level and want to read for enjoyment into their hands and I am also excited to
have more space, more time, less students and the right amount of materials for
them to access.
Phonics Instruction
I feel confident in my phonics instruction;
however, I think that with the circumstances of teaching ½ day kindergarten
this year, I dedicated and focused too much time on teaching phonics and
phonemic awareness in a whole group setting.
Next year in all day K I want to allow more time for differentiation in
my instruction. I want use the
assessments in the beginning of the year to guide my instruction so I am more easily
able teach phonics and phonemic awareness to the students who truly need it in
more of a small group setting.
Talking About Reading
My students spend a lot of time learning
“how” to read, and not a lot of time talking about “what” they are reading. Again, with time constraints, it was
difficult to manage this past year. Next
year I want to spend more time talking about reading with the students. I want to know why they chose what they are reading;
I want to know what is happening and what is exciting to them. I am excited to be teaching all day and
having the extra time (a.k.a.-luxury) to pair my students up with students from
an older grade. I think that this buddy
reading activity will excite and motivate my kinders to become good
readers.
Hi Jess!
ReplyDeleteYou have so many good ideas and I'm so excited for you to actually have the time to do them!! Although, you'll quickly find out that you'll even want MORE time (yes, it is true!) I too have questioned how much time should be dedicated to phonics and phonemic awareness. It's always a balancing act but I do like the idea of doing less at large group and more during guided reading groups. I recently started (parts of) Daily 5 at the end of the year so I'm hopeful if I start it earlier, I can use some of that time to practice those skills. Often in large group, I find the same kids participating and the same kids not-participating. I think the small group instruction will help me get to know my kids better and hopefully attack the skills sooner! Do you use Daily 5? How do you set up reading/writing time for your kids?
This year I was able to let my kids choose their books for take home and their book bags. I LOVED it and so did the kids (except for one according to my survey). It is so much easier to manage. Next year I want to work more on how to pick a good fit book. I have my library leveled as much as I can but I want them to be able to pick from my other books as well. My kids picked books at choice time but often forgot. I would sometimes give them the first 5 minutes of Daily 5 to switch books or incentives to do at choice which seemed to help.
Hi Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more about how the Daily 5 is working for you! I have read parts of the book and have pondered wether or not to implement it in my room, but it just all seemed too overwhelming for half-dayers. Maybe next year!!!
My district does a lot with Reader's and Writer's Workshop. I am just learning more about Readers Workshop for next year, however, this year we had Writer's Workshop 3-4 times a week. It is really tough for the kids at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year they are begging for their writing time...they just love it so much! During 1/2 hour of Writer's Workshop the kids get to choose what to write about. I also have a 15 minute writing center that the kids get to work at during our Literacy Work Station time 2-3 times a week, this is where I have the kids do more of a guided writing with topics/writing propmpts that they can write about.
For reading, we had about a 15-20 minute whole group lesson where we focused on a spacific letter, word or skill. Then we would break out into our Literacy Work Station time. I have 10 different stations set up throughout the room and the kids were paired up with one other student. Each group would get to 1-2 stations each day at 20-30 minutes each. This is the time that I would pull groups back to me for guided reading, benchmarking or testing. Then it's pretty much time for the kids to go home and I'd then get to do it again for the afternoon class!
As for your book bags, do you have any helpful tips for me? I'm super excited to get to implement this agian. What is the easiest way to level a classroom library? Do you have any good sites/apps that you use for leveling your books? And, what type of leveling system do you use? (Ex: Fountas & Pinnell, Accelerated Reading, Lexile...)