Guided Reading

The article I read this week is: Guided Reading: A Reasearch-Based Response to the Challenges of Early Reading Instruction By: Anita Iaquinta

Guided reading first starts with good teaching. I believe that this is so important in teaching students the appropriate skills necessary to become successful readers. This includes being able to properly group students together. Sometimes as teachers, we group students into their ability level groups, and these do not change throughout the year. In dynamic grouping, it is necessary to change these groups up, and for the students to expect them to change throughout the year. As students progress to a different level of reading, they need to change groups where they can be challenged in new areas. I never realized how important it was to divide up these reading groups, to observe, monitor, and then rearrange them according to each students needs.
The article points out that HOW you teach is just as important as WHAT you teach, knowing when to intervene, and when not to intervene. We want our students to succeed, so we find ourselves correcting them many times when it is not necessary. I realize sometimes I am too hard on the students when they are reading, because I want to them to get everything right. But that is when it is important to choose which strategies you want to focus on with each child, so they do not feel overwhelmed. Once they have accomplished that skills, you can move on to a new one.
1. What if a child is really struggling with a skill, do you move on to a new one and hope that it will come, or do you stay on that skill until it is mastered?
2. Is it too much to teach 2-3 skills at once while a child is reading a passage?

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is all around us. You always think of learning new vocabulary while reading books, but in the article Vocabulary Lesson Fisher and Blachowicz point out that you can learn new words through conversations, television, and daily experiences. I believe it is important to point this out to children when emphasizing how important and prevalent vocabulary is to academic success. When students encounter unfamiliar words, they often skip over then and no new knowledge is learned. This might be because students aren't trained or comfortable with using dictionaries. It is necessary to teach students how to look these words up, whether it be with a dictionary or by using the internet. One they read about the new word, ask them to write it down in their journals and even act out the new meanings. The more ways students interact with new vocabulary, the more familiar it will become to them. They can do this by using the many technology suggestions presented in the eVoc strategies article. Allow them to play with words, and discover their meaning further through Wordle, graphic organizers, TrackStar, PowerPoints, and podcasts. This gives them ownership of their learning, and inspires them to explore new vocabulary.

1. How do you keep students that aren't avid readers, interested and curious about learning new vocabulary?
2. How do you enhance those student's vocabulary who don't have much conversation at home, watch television, or have reading resources outside of school (mainly at risk communities)?

Below is a Wordle created using the US Constitution. You can use this Wordle to identify the important words within the Constitution, and talk about their meanings and importance in writing the Constitution:

Comprehension

My reaction to Ms. Hope's classroom scenario was quite impressive. I was in awe at the task she was challenging these kindergarteners to participate in, and then the fact that they carried it out so well was even that more impressive. I know it takes time and effort to get to this point in your classroom, because she had to teach the children was schema was, and then go beyond that and teach categories the different kinds of comprehension she was looking for. But once she was able to explain this to her students, they were able to participate in meaningful learning while learning how to make connections to what they were reading. Gill's article also brings up interesting points. She talks about how students have to make prior connections before they can begin to comprehend what they read. Once they make these connections, they can adjust their existing schema to help make sense of the new content presented. One thing, I believe I would have trouble with in the classroom, would be helping students activate this prior knowledge. It also made me feel better to read that you don't have to teach ALL of the strategies. Just start with one, and students will begin to improve their comprehension skills from one strategy alone.

Here is a website with comprehension strategies:
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/comprehension_strategies.html
1. What are some interesting post activities that you can incorporate to test student's comprehension without doing boring worksheets?