Katy DeFouw-Chapter 10 Examine Guided Reading

            During guided reading the text explains that it is important to choose the right book, make sense of the text, decode, define, read fluently, monitor comprehension, and determine the purpose of reading the text.  All reading time should be purposeful and have meaning behind it. 

In the text, I found the author’s comment about the importance of guided reading useful.  In summary, it was alluded to that reading conferences are informal ways to conduct guided reading. This was reassuring to me because I try to talk to my students about the accelerated reader books that they are reading.  I really focus on teaching my students to become independent readers who are responsible for their reading, learning, and comprehension. 

            The text also suggested to pick books that will integrate different subjects such as science and social studies.  Often it is difficult to carve out a time in our schedule to teach science and social studies daily, but having the flexibility to choose these texts helps me teach the standards.  This was a great chapter for me to read and reflect on the time spent on guided reading in my classroom.    

Katy DeFouw Chapter 9-Emphasize Shared Reading

            Shared reading is a major part of any reading program.  The text explains that shared reading is an important part of scaffolding with the learner.  Shared reading is a time for demonstrating and modeling reading fluency.  This is also a time for showing your students inflection when reading text. 

             I enjoy shared reading time in my classroom very much.  I love to read stories to my students.  The text explains that the purpose of shared reading in first grade is to promote the enjoyment of reading, rereading of the text, and reading your favorite texts.  During shared reading time, the teacher can promote guided participation because there is little fear of failure for the students. 

This chapter gave me some great ideas of how to focus on different aspects of the text when reading during shared reading time.  Some of these ideas were to pick texts to focus on various genres, and characterization.  The chapter also suggested that a great way to remember what your purpose is for choosing the shared reading book is marking it with post-it notes.  

Kelli Donald's Blog Post #6: Routman Chapter 9--Emphasize Shared Reading

I really enjoyed reading Routman's Chapter 9, Emphasize Shared Reading because I often feel in ELA if I am reading to them or we are reading together that we are not utilizing our time the best we can.  I guess I feel that independent reading helps develop them as readers the best.  This chapter reinforced that shared reading is still very much an awesome strategy to use to help develop readers.  I think I have just heard "guided reading" and "small group" so much that I have begun to feel if I am not working in small groups that I am not "teaching with a sense of urgency."   My class loves to read and hear stories, and that passion has driven much of my instruction this year.  We have collectively developed a love for the Magic Tree House series, and my students want to read from those books everyday.  So for some of our ELA time (not necessarily everyday or every week), our class reads from these stories together.  We (3rd grade teachers) have uploaded some of the books on to it'sLearning so the students are able to follow along and participate in the reading.  And they love it.  It's so awesome for students to get excited about reading and a series that they ask to read from the books everyday.  Another bonus to reading the Magic Tree House during our shared reading time is many of the book tie in to our Social Studies content.  It really doesn't get any better than that for a teacher.  Reading this chapter really encouraged me because I know that by reading these books together as a class it is helping to develop their reading achievement just as well as independent reading and small group do. 

Dawn Mitchell's March/April Blog Post "Examine Guided Reading" Routman Chapter 10

Dawn Mitchell's Examine Guided Reading Chapter 10

During the month of February we are learning about Literacy Development.   In both our choice and our required readings this month educational researchers explain the different ways our students grow and develop as readers and writers and their articles provide us with insight and suggestions in how we can best support and foster the literacy growth of our students. 

In March’s blendspace you will find a variety of resources we’ve included for you including the Notes/Thinking chart from Jennifer Serravallo’s Reading Strategies professional development text to use as you navigate through making connections with the four readings from this month.  Also included is the ATLAS Looking at Data protocol that we introduced to you to help analyze authentic student assessment data that can help you determine where students are as readers and writers and what support they need to grow next.   You will also find in our blendspace this month’s tech tool to take called storybird (www.storybird.com) which is a great web 2.0 resource for student publishing of their own books as well as poems. 

This month for my blog post, I have chosen to read chapter 10 “Examine Guided Reading” from Routman’s Reading Essentials for many reasons.  First, this is a classroom structure that many teachers I have the honor of working with utilize in various grade levels in multiple ways and for multiple purposes so I wanted to find out some basic criteria for effective guided reading that could provide a foundational basis for us as a whole for guided reading. 

Second, this is a classroom structure that I have had experience with as a fourth grade teacher and appreciated the structure it provided to work with a small group of students around a shared text to provide support that scaffolded students towards independence, and I wanted to expand my knowledge base.  Second

To fulfill my first purpose for reading I discovered that Atwell’s holistic definition of guided reading is, “…most often defined as meeting with a small group of students and guiding and supporting them through a manageable text.  Students are grouped with others at a similar reading level and supported to use effective reading strategies.  Often, there are “before, during, and after” activities and discussion in which students talk about, think about, and read through the text.” (page 150) Routman goes on to explain that her view of guided reading is broader and can be any context in which the teacher guides one or more students through some aspect of the reading process. 

To fulfill my first purpose for reading to grow myself as an educator I decided to use Seravallo’s Notes/Thinking Chart to hold what I learned from Routman and what it compelled me to think about.

Notes – What Routman Says	Thinking – My Thoughts
“Be Cautious About How You Group Children.”  Routman says “Once students are already reading, grouping students so narrowly is unnecessary…Personally, I am no longer comfortable ability grouping beyond second grade.  I worry about the message such grouping sends to students – a message that they are somehow less capable.  If you group by   ability, make sure you keep it short (ten to fifteen minutes) and provide daily opportunities for more varied groups – whole-class shared reading, heterogeneous small groups, partner reading, independent reading.	I agree with this thought 100%.  I have ethical issues with ability grouping students in the same homogenous group all year long.  I have seen how this unintentionally labels students and in doing so, limits what instruction we provide and what they can do. I do appreciate the suggestions Routman provides in her section on opportunities for flexible grouping and have tried several of her suggestions. (page 153) *literature circles *Re-reading and discussing a story with a group *Reading with a partner *Reading a small chunk or passage from a *book with a group during whole class interactive reading. *Engaging in reciprocal teaching *Rereading part of a familiar text as Readers Theatre.
“Be sure the texts you use are of the highest quality.  Your guided reading lesson will only be as good as the text you use.” (page 154) “Because the quality of books varies widely, be sure you carefully examine the ones you use for guided reading…For older students, put more emphasis on interest than on levels.  Once a student is a competent reader, you don’t have to worry so much about exact levels.”	YAASSSS!  Preach it Routman!  Too many times we provide students with mass produced “leveled readers” that are boring, have poorly done illustrations, and are not interesting enough to provoke discussions and extended thinking.  I loved the checklist Routman provides on page 155 to identify qualities of an excellent test for guided reading.
“…you don’t need to meet with every group every day…Once students are independent readers at their grade level, you will not need to see them every day in guided reading group:  two or three days a week is sufficient, especially if you have a strong shared reading program and a well-monitored independent reading program.	This is reassuring to here because I have found that many times I need to adjust my structures depending on my students’ needs and what the data tells me they need.  For example, there have been times students’ needed an extended independent reading block because they were “into” their books and we’d extended stamina and I was conferencing with students.  There’ve also been times when we were in a really in the zone with writing workshop and I needed to spend longer one or two days a week to maximize student motivation for the task and to make progress with their student driven products.  Knowing that consistency that you meet with students takes priority over consistency when you meet with students matches what works for me in my practice.
“Make Time for Independent Reading Your First Priority…Be consistent about reading aloud, maintain a daily (monitored) independent reading program, and implement shared reading and guided reading flexibly as contexts for demonstrations, strategies, and practice.” (page 158)	Yes!  I definitely appreciate this clarifier in this chapter.  Everything I’ve read points to independent reading of choice texts is the number one factor in promoting reading growth.  I know firsthand when implementing a new structure it can take over and dominate your literacy block crowding out any time for other equally or even more meaningful structures.  Independent reading and writing are the priority.  Guided reading supplements this.
“Keeping your focus on learner-centered reading instead of on group-centered reading enables you to make the best teaching decisions for your students.  Once again, you teach students, not programs.  Decide first what it is you want and need to teach and then what the best contexts are for teaching to ensure students are learning and enjoying learning to read.” (Page 160)	This needs to be a bill board…A giant poster…A commercial… A required public service announcement that plays repeatedly on all airwaves…Seriously I love me some Regie Routman! #makethebestteachingdecisionsforyourstudents
“Modeling exactly what we expect students to do must start the first day they enter our classroom.  When we have established a classroom where we have bonded with our students and treat them respectfully, they return that respect… Expect students to manage their own behavior. My single best piece of advice is to ignore distracting behavior. Do not intervene unless it’s an emergency.  You are letting students know that the teaching you are about to do is critically important and that they are now in charge.”	Can anyone say Harry Wong?  I had major flashbacks to The First Days of School Text but Routman and Wong and Marsha Tate along with a host of other experts in promoting independent behaviors in students suggest that we must teach students what we expect and showing, not just telling is effective in helping to create consistency in our classroom procedures and routines.  Excellent anchor chart ideas that also reminded me of the suggestions for I-Charts from the authors of The Daily Five on page 164 and 165.
“If the first question we ask students after reading is, “What words did you have difficulty with?” we are giving them the message that reading is about getting the words right.  I always ask first – even with nonreaders – “Tell me about what you just read” so students always know we read for understanding.” (page 167)	Yes! Reading = Meaning We must not reduce our reading instruction to isolated word de-coding, skill and drill, or fact/recall questions.  We read to learn, to know, to grow.
“Don’t jump right in when a child makes an error.  Students need opportunities to problem-solve in order to learn to monitor and correct themselves.” (page 174)	I believe in this whole-heartedly but find that at times I struggle controlling my first impulse to jump in and help students.  I am not helping them when I am doing the work for them.  I am actually sending the message to them that I don’t think they can do it themselves.  I want to build capacity not limit it.
“Underlying all purposes for reading is the question, “How is what I am doing today going to help students become more independent readers?” (page 168)	Yep!  That is the ultimate driving essential question for us as reading teachers.  How are we growing readers into leaders?
*Excerpts From Guided Reading Groups from page 175-182	Must Keep for Future Reference – These transcripts of actual guided reading lessons are a great resource for any teacher, myself included when planning to implement guided reading with their grade level.

Thanks Regie Routman for the wonderful suggestions and advice.  Thanks to Jenniffer Serravallo or the great structure that helped me hold my thinking.

Sincerely,

Dawn