Guided Reading

I haven't posted in 10 days. :(

I am sorry. I really need to get with it. I usually post after my two days at M School (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and any other times I am inspired by articles I come across, class discussions here at Penn, etc.

I was in New Hampshire for the weekend with John, it was beautiful. :) Here is a picture of the beautiful leaves at St. Anselm College (where John went to undergrad). It was so nice up there - it made me realize how much I miss the country. I love the city, but its so nice to get out into the sticks again.

Anyways - re: teaching. I did my first guided reading group on Wednesday, and it went really well. I have our lowest level boys - Dem, Eth, Kal, Kaa, and Mik. Some of my very favorite students. I really love them - they don't always have the "right" answer, but they are so creative and interesting. This was the very first time guided reading was done in my classroom at all - I've never seen it done, and I felt like I was just kind of making it up as I went along. I have a few organizers and we've done readings on how it should be done in class, but the way Mrs. C asked me to do it isn't the way we've been instructed.

The piece she asked me to use was a "readers theater" style piece and I assigned parts and we read it out loud together. Because it was a theatrical piece, we talked about reading with expression and the clues in the text that help us know what to do with our voices when we're reading out loud. We talked about the title, we walked through the pictures, and tried to decode any difficult vocabulary together as we went. They seemed really enthusiastic and it seemed like they enjoyed reading together. I'm going to do guided reading with them again next week, but it'll be more traditional - they'll read silently and we'll discuss.

I wonder if Mrs. C would let me do a literature circle with them for guided reading instead of the Trophies texbook readings we're doing now. I want to think of some good chapter books that I could get six copies of for us to read together each week. I think that theres a lot to be said for reading a "story" from week to week and retaining comprehension, learning and practicing reading strategies, etc. I think that it would be especially good if I could find something the boys would be into and excited about.

I read the guided reading text I'm supposed to use for this week and it just seems kind of babyish and boring. Its about a boy, and his dog, "Loyal" and the dog runs away and protects some chickens and gets bitten by a fox and goes home. I have a feeling its just not going to be a good read for 10 year old boys. Maybe I can convince Mrs. C to let me do a chapter book with them. I will look in the library to see if I can find something at a similar reading level but with more interesting content. All ideas welcome!