Showing posts with label Guided Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guided Reading. Show all posts

Currently in August

I'm linking up with Farley again for her August Currently. I still have a week before I have to go back.


I'm listening to City of Bones by Cassandra Clare before it opens in the movies. Its been an interesting read. I'm hoping to finish it before going back. I'm loving the cooler weather. I doubt it will last much longer but the rain in the afternoon has been great for walking my dogs first thing and still have time to get a run in before it heats up. I have to set up my iPads for the beginning of the year but just not gotten to it yet. (Will share when I figure it out). I hate unpacking my classroom. I'll need to suck it up and go in and get that done before heading back in a week. I'm needing to train two new teammates and bring them up to speed. I will need to update my data charts with last years state assessment data once I have it. This information will help make decisions for the coming months. What I always do once back--Starbucks, lunch with teachers at least once before the end of the first week back, and have the first couple of units planned out and ready to go. (This I have done of math and reading.)



Have a great weekend, enjoying the time before returning to school.



CBB--Part 1

Last week I shared that I was going to use Creative Book Builder to replace my students Guided Reading Notebooks. Over the last week I've had a chance to play with CBB and I love how simple it is to use. I have been able to add pictures and link the text to "proof" options like Talking Tom or Haiku Deck. Students can add audio and files from Google Docs.  This is the beginning of what I'm thinking. I need to figure out how I want my primary kiddos to create theirs. This one is for my older kiddos.


I use the Comprehension Toolkit when I teach comprehension strategies-so my example include how I would want students to add those notes. At the top of the page is the learning target and why students need to know the strategy. I want students to have a place to return to find examples and sentence frames.  Plus, how students will show they understand the target. This many end up being too time consuming when I take this back in the fall but I think as these are things that would go in their notebook students will be able to do on an iPad -- more time is going to be planned into each lesson.

I think when I set up a primary example, I wonder if it can be done in mostly pictures. or something where they don't have as much text to type or refer back to. Back to playing. I hope your summer is off to a restful and fun start.

Read, Write, Publish--Repeat

I work with students that have a love/hate relationship with reading. Some love it and will read anything I put in front of them but won't write about it-no matter what. Others hate reading but love writing. My students this year have learned to at respect both because they read, they write about what they read, and then they publish what they wrote. And they do it every week. We have read more and written more then we have in the past. The students know that their work gets posted on the class website for them to share with their family.

Students can choose from just typing their work in Google to using Talking Tom or using StoryBird or Haiku Deck for their work. With the exception of typing and StoryBird, they need just a day to get the work done. Which for me is great because I only have them for 30 minutes a day. So, short and sweet is a must.

StoryBird is a free web site that can be used to create and publish. They have free teacher accounts where teachers can set up student accounts. I embed the projects but you can buy the books. Haiku Deck is a free app. It is a very cleaned up and simply version of a power point. It's designed to create presentations with very few words. Students create and email their work when they are finished. It can be viewed online once you have the address but I've found it easier to embed the work. The students that have used both of these love them. They have said that Haiku is harder because they have to summarize the summarized paragraph into one or two short sentences.

Students know at the beginning of each book what they will be expected to publish. I post this information on the Learning Target.  The group has one comprehension strategy plus a high order thinking question which  will be published.



Other groups are working on mastering all the comprehension strategies such as writing summaries and making connections. My students are well versed in internet safety because I post their work on line. Make sure you do the same. Here are couple of student examples using Haiku Deck and StoryBird:







Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

My students love doing this work. Its not something extra that I have built into our week. They know that if they don't work hard during the week--publishing doesn't happen. But every Monday we start over and do it again. Reading, Write, Publish--Repeat.


Non-Fiction Texts

What is it about summarizing non-fiction text that sends everyone into a tail spin????

A group of my 5th grade students began reading a non-fiction text and had to summarize it as they went. I had them write one sentence that summed up each one or two paragraph sections. They spent to whole week grumbling about it. And the whole idea of having read it and then write about what they have read--is a new idea for them. Well-I don't know what they have done in class but this is the first book with me that they have done. But then all my students reading books write about what they read and publish they work. They have let to revolt--maybe it has something to do with the technology???

I created a couple of scaffolds for them to use. They were created with non-fiction text in mind, however the retelling and student conversation cards can be used with any text type. The student conversation cards are a way to get students to take control of the conversations about what they are reading. I use them to teach students how to have meaningful conversations about books without me having to lead the conversation. I'll have to give this one more time--they don't like talking about books on their own. But this too will come. What strategies or scaffolds do you use to help students with non-fiction text. I'd love to hear from  you.  Have a great weekend. Spring has sprung in Colorado.







Reading Comprehension Strategies and ELL Students--Freebie

This year, it seems like I have more second language learners in my small reading groups than in the past. Last year, I spend I lot of time using the Comprehension Toolkit for these small groups and had great success in using it. That success was not so great with the ELLs that may of been part of those groups. Reflecting on why, these students didn't grow as much as the others in the group, lead to me to look more closely at the language needed to use the skill.

Working with our building ELL Resource teacher, she suggested using sentence stems that target where students language and support them to learn how to use each strategy. You will find two sets of posters: one of the comprehension strategies and another matching set but with sentence stems to help students learn the language around the strategies.


Reading Comprehension Strategy Posters for Blog

ESL Prompts Reading Comprehension Strategy Posters

Things I Give Parents

I send home or give parents lots of things over the year--data, progress reports, and newsletters. I have many parents that ask for about reading levels about what students need to do either to move up or simply give them an idea about where they are in the big picture. The "Parent's Guide to Reading Levels" contains both DRA and Fountas and Pinnell reading levels 1st to 6th grade with a brief list of major themes that have to be mastered. The other form I use to track my students over several years. It's great for IEP meetings because everyone can see the students progress over the years. It is labeled in Fountas and Pinnell. My building uses both-we give the DRA twice a year and our core reading curriculum in labeled in Fountas and Pinnell. I'd love to hear what you share with parents throughout the year. Have a great Wednesday!!

















Choosing Vocabulary Words


Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach

When I plan my lessons, vocabulary becomes a top priority. I know that a student’s maximum reading comprehension is determined by their word knowledge. Their progress through reading levels is determined by their knowledge of words. They need to a strong word base comprehend text. I make sure that when I’m teaching new vocabulary words I want them to know how to define the word, recognize when to use that word, know its multiple meaning (if any), and read/spell the word.

So, with all those words out there, how do you choose?

When I’m planning, I group my words into three tiers.

Tier 1 words

Tier 1 words are words that students typically know. For example, a Tier 1 word might be butterfly. Another Tier 1 word might be march (move like a soldier). A word like march can be easily instructed during text discussion by marching in place. But because this word has multiple meanings, it also merits further instruction. This can be accomplished through oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

Tier 2 words

Tier 2 words are more complex than Tier 1 words. They usually are ones that students need to understand that are all over the core curriculum. Words like area, perimeter, rivers, mountains are important for them know.  These are the words I spend my time on; making sure they know these words.

Tier 3 words

These are low-frequency words that are found mostly in content books in the upper grades or words that students need a brief working knowledge of but don’t need to understand the word at a great depth. I tend to think of these words as nice to know but not critical to students understanding the text a great depth of knowledge; like metric system or time zone. These words I usually tell the group when we are doing our picture walk. Something short and sweet-just enough for them to get the jest and move on. 

I'm always on the hunt for new ways to teach vocabulary. What are your favorite ways to teach students vocabulary? 




Should Guided Reading Go Away?

Mark Barnes posted on his ASCDedge blog this week about guided reading highlighting the top 5 reasons why it should be eliminated. You can check it out here.

Reason 5: Guided reading doesn't teach reading. True, in most of my guided reading groups I'm teaching comprehension strategies or it's a skills group. Whether or not it needs to happen within the structure of guided readings, I'm not so sure what structure you would use. I do agree that students need to be reading "just right" books and not doing worksheets.

Reason 4: It's boring. Well I have to agree. If your doing the same thing day in day out; you would be too. I think this is where Daily 5 comes in to play. Students are working on authentic tasks not worksheets. 

Reason 3: Guided reading holds readers back. I can see when your sending 3 or 4 weeks beating a novel to death a problem. But if your groups are moving through several books a week, their not going to be bored. I think you have to balance the need to work on comprehension and the goal of finishing a classic novel. 

Reason 2: It's all about teacher control. We tell students what they are going to read and don't provide them with choice. I want my students to find a love for reading. It's hard enough getting them to read anything but they have to have choice. I like pulling three books from their guided reading level and say here pick--majority rules. 

Reason 1: It teaches students to hate books. Barnes found that by creating a year-long independent reading project students read more. I'm not sure that using guided reading to teach comprehension strategies means than students will hate reading. But I do know that if I had to spend several weeks, reading a boring novel, and pulling everything last this out of it--I would hate it. 

There is no easy way to make sure students learn to love reading. Is not using the structure of guided reading the way to teach reading? Barnes has pointed out that when we don't push students when their are in small group reading, give them choice over what they are reading,  how they will prove what they know, they will not find a love for reading. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Hey, be one of the first four visitors of leave me a comment and I'll share with you my new High Speed Addition: Sports. Oh-make sure you me your email. 


Text Complexity


I have DRA, Fountas & Pinnell, and Lexile scores, they all tell me how hard a text is. I start the a book level and then think about my readers. I think about what skills they need to have to read the book I selected with as little support from me as possible. Common Core is all about text complexity. Common core asks students to gain a deeper understanding of text. They need to be able to answer a variety of questions both literal and inferential.  Even Kindergarten students can answer higher order thinking questions. 


Laura Varlas points out in this weeks, Education Update from ASCD, that increasing the complexity of text creates two challenges for teachers: figuring out that the assigned texts are appropriately complex, and helping students handle more difficult reading.

Grant Wiggins, (Understanding by Design), points out "staying true to the demands of standards, without over scaffolding, and in heterogeneous classroom where teachers may have students reading three levels below proficiency." He continues to point out that interventions will need to focus on vocabulary and complicated sentences. This information reminds me of Lori Jamison Rog's, comment on struggling readers in her book "Guiding Readers," that 90% of struggling readers need to work on comprehension strategies. And to trust your assessments and use them to guide your instruction.

How do you increase the complexity of text without over scaffolding? You have to differentiate your instruction.

Differentiation Non-Negotiables
We must
  • Know you content and it should be taught.
  • Respect and respond to ALL learners.
  • Know your instructional strategies and how to use them.
  • Use multiple sources of data to inform decisions.
  • Differentiation is not a set of strategies but a way of thinking about the teaching.
  • Differentiate how students will access core and master core.

Actions to Take
  • Design learning based on task analysis that includes an analysis on what student need to access the instruction plus look at students readiness, background knowledge they bring.
  • Provide sources of information at various reading levels to match the needs of learners.
  • Know where students are going to the need support to access the content.
  • Let students know how they will be graded prior to the beginning of the instruction.
  • Use flexible grouping; this will allow students to work and learn with a variety of classmates. 
  • Gives students both choice and responsibility around learning.
  • Collaborate with colleagues and parents.
  • Ask yourself:
    • What will I do if some students don't learn?
    • What will I do if some students already know what I want them them to learn?
Differentiation is how everyone gets core. Differentiation is how students will access complex text with a deeper level of understanding. I'd love to hear how you differentiate; to support students access to complex texts.

Friday's freebie is "Little Book of Colors" click on the picture to get it. Have a great weekend!

Little Book of Colors

Guiding Readers Chapter 7

I love this book. I have many guided reading books in my library but no of them lay out what you should do for readers quite like this one. Chapter seven focuses on those struggling reading in the upper grades. We all have at least one each year, a 5th or 6th grade students reading well below grade level.  These guys are part of the RTI system regardless of their special education status. For me they get their guided reading from me--as a have a group that low. 


What stuck out to me, was Rog's comments on boy readers. When I reflect back on the upper elementary groups from the last couple of years, they are made up of mostly boys who state that they hate reading. They were as mostly not staffed and would not qualify for special education. Rog states, "that only 10% of struggling adolescent readers need work on decoding." They can decode but have no comprehension skills.  


In my building, we have pounded decoding in our students K-3 but have not focused on comprehension. We all struggle with the older kids how just have no clue what they are reading. This last year, teachers were giving The Comprehension Toolkit. (If you don't have it, it's so worth the price.) I have used it the last couple of years with my older students and this year with kindergartens. 


She also points out that choosing text is also something that needs to be at the forefront of our planning for struggling readers. That no more than 5% challenging words and concepts should be present. Easier said than done. I have used my computers readability to get an idea of how easy or hard a text is. I have found using the guided reading level doesn't always help--it gives you a range and it could an easy R/40 or a hard R/40. What makes it harder is finding text that boys want to read. Another place, I like using is Intervention Central's, Oral Reading Fluency Passage Generator. I type in the passage I'm using and it spits out readability and I get my running record at the same time. Yeah!!!


This spring I spent close to 6 weeks, reading about Titanic using the Comprehension Toolkit. A boy a requested for it because of the anniversary. By the time we were done, I had taught three strategies and made one girl so sick of reading about the Titanic. Well, I was done with it too. The three boys loved those six weeks.  I think that if I had used a novel, it would not have been as much fun and no one would have been engaged with anything. I like the acrostic that Paul Kropp has for what you need to keep in mind when looking for books for boys. You'll find a poster below. How to you engage boys in wanting to read?


In all my guided reading groups I work in student choice. No always six weeks of it but live is always better when I do. I have found boys prefer nonfiction over narrative.  I never try to water down text or books for my students. I plan my scaffolding around my readers and make sure that they have enough background knowledge to read the text successfully. I'm a firm believer that the book you choose needs to match the readers needs; both decoding and comprehension load. I use my assessments to guide the direction they need to move in.



BEAR Poster

Friday--Progress Monitoring

Progress monitoring. What's to say. Some do it without thinking about it. While others of us run and hide. Some think that in a data rich environment that there's no need. This may be true but if you had prove how students were responding to instruction, could you? In an Response to Intervention Model (RTI) it has to be done.


What is progress monitoring?
Progress monitoring is a scientifically based practice that is used to assess students’ academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. Progress monitoring can be implemented with individual students or an entire class.



The benefits are great for everyone involved. Some benefits include:
  •  accelerated learning because students are receiving more appropriate instruction;
  • more informed instructional decisions;
  • documentation of student progress for accountability purposes;
  • more efficient communication with families and other professionals about students’ progress;
  • higher expectations for students by teachers; and
  • fewer Special Education referrals.



Overall, the use of progress monitoring results in more efficient and appropriately targeted instructional techniques and goals, which together, move all students to faster attainment of important state standards of achievement.

Another reason to progress monitor students is RTI. 
The problem-solving approach is as fundamental to the success of the Response to Intervention Model. In the problem solving approach, problems are identified (clarified in terms of target and actual performance); strategies are developed to address them; measurements are designed to evaluate progress; plans for who will do what, when and where are devised; plans are carried out; results are evaluated; and the ensuing analysis informs the next round of instruction and intervention. Progress monitoring assessments are essential to evaluating students' progress and evaluating students' results.
I always ask myself two questions when I look at student progress monitoring data:
  1. is she making progress towards a grade-level expectation or long-term goal?
  2. is she making progress towards mastery of a targeted skill?
District-wide curriculum-based measures (CBM) are often used by teachers to answer the first question, while teacher-made probes often provide data to answer the second question. While often confused with curriculum-based assessment, curriculum-based measures are a particular type of standardized assessments that allow a teacher to determine students' progress toward long-term goals. 

CBM's monitor student progress through direct, continuous assessment of basic skills (ie: letter name fluency, reading fluency, maze comprehension, spelling, math calculations). Students are presented multidimensional probes that integrate various skills that students need to meet grade-level expectations. For example, three times a year benchmarks to determine the number of words correct per minute a child can read on a grade-level text. Examples of curriculum-based measures include Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), Monitoring Basic Skills Progress (MBSP) and AIMSweb. 

Progress monitoring goes beyond timed one minute drills. It also includes rubrics, pre/post tests, and quizzes. Just about anything can be used to show whether students are getting it or not.  

Over the last year, I have begun having students create their own goal. They last no more that 4 weeks. This helps with by-in and encourages them to continue to improve. I found that once students know how to graph their own data, they can do it. So I let them. I also have created graphs that have students predict how they will do and then complete the monitoring--students graphing both. At the beginning of the year, students are way, way off with their predictions but by Thanksgiving the two numbers begin to match up.

I also prefer graphs that are in five to six week segments. This makes it easier for students to see their progress and it's easier for students to use on their own.  Each Friday in June, I will post about the tricks and tools I use to make progress monitoring manageable and student/parent friendly. What progress monitoring tricks and tools have you found that you use with your students?

This freebie, has progress monitoring tools attached and a graph for sight words where you can have students predict how well they will do. Enjoy.
Sight Word Fluency Prediction and Record Sheet
Tic Tac -At Word Family






How Should Students With Learning Disabilities Be Identified? and Glogster Pictures

I came across this article posted on Education Week, "How Should Students With Learning Disabilities Be Identified?". It talks about how RTI has become the new "Wait and Fail" model. My team was told at the beginning of the school year, that RTI could not be used to delay or deny access to special education and an IEP. Colorado adapted RTI two years ago as the only means to identify a student with a learning disability. Each year we get a little bit better and create a stronger model to support students before they fail. This year we got really good at hold Student Study Teams monthly with classroom teachers. How does your building/district have RTI set-up?

Last week, I had my students practicing visualization using poetry. They had to pick a poem and them use pictures to describe what they saw while reading the poem. They had a blast using Glogster to create their visions. Here's a couple of examples:





Word Study

No matter if its Wilson or Just Words, I have found the my students need more practice with Long A combinations and Long E combinations. Both Wilson and Just Words teach vowel consonant /e/ way before students are introduced to vowel teams; which is great for my students. They get a chance to mastery one before they have to take on another.  Word study also has to be built into guided reading. I try to pull it directly out of what the group is reading so that they can see and read the words in context. How do you use word work in your guided reading groups? Happy Sping Break--I'm off to enjoy Colorados beautiful spring time weather!!
Safari long a and e

Gradually Release

Over the last two years, my building has used the gradually release strategy from Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. In gradually release, the teacher gradually releases control of the use of the skills and strategies to the students. The expectation being students apply the strategies and skills learned in guided reading lessons to other reading outside of the lesson. Students should begin to 'own' the strategy as they mastery strategy or skill.  Guided reading is mosty on the students, where Modeling the strategy is totally me as the teacher, and in the middle is shared where both the students and I are working on the strategy together.

A highlight of their work is the learning goal; making sure that I have a clearly definded focus no matter what lesson I'm teaching. I weave my learning focus into my introduction. For example: Today, we will be reading another text that has lots of interesting information. When we read a text it has important things, sometimes something strange or not so important things. Today, we going to learn how to sift and sort what is really important and what interesting. This strategy is very helpful because you'll be able to use it with lots of different text.

For Wilson, this is far more interesting because it moves back forth between all three many times in a lesson but the lesson plans don't include a learning focus. Will I fixed that! I not have a lesson plan that includes lesson focus. I also couldn't find a lesson plan for think alouds and shared reading, so I made those as well. Just in time to use before Spring Break.
Modeled I Do Lesson Plan Shared Reading Lesson Plan Wilson Lesson Plan With Learning Goals

Guided Reading as an Intervention

It's funny--I spend most of my time at the beginning of the year using scripted interventions. Then comes the mid-year data and changes. By this time of the year, I find that I miss guided reading and seeing students in text and finding that love for reading. One of the Title teachers I work with asked me last week what I use for guided reading when phonics and word study still need to happen daily. I use "Jan Richard's "The Next Step in Guided Reading" or Beverly Tyner's "Small-Group Reading Instruction: A Differentiated Teaching Model for Beginning and Struggling Readers" to give students a double dose of guided reading.

Since I don't have access to a guided reading program with lesson plans and books, their plans help me design lessons that help me make sure that students who still need phonics but not Wilson get that. What I love even more is that they work great for Kindergarten--who should be in books. Even if I have a group that still needs some skill work, I can get them in books. Even if with scaffolding they have a blast reading and talking about the books--making connections to their own lives.

The Kindergarten class that I provide support to during Daily 5 has several English Language Learners as well as other high need exceptional needs students. Thoses guys have fallen in love with a couple of mini-books that I have created to pre-teach the vocabulary of the books that they are going to read. I hang on to them for a couple of days while we are working in the book and then they take them home and "read" to their parents or to themselves.

Mini Book Who Lives in the Arctic

About Me

Welcome to my all thing special education blog. I empower busy elementary special education teachers to use best practice strategies to achieve a data and evidence driven classroom community by sharing easy to use, engaging, unique approaches to small group reading and math. Thanks for Hopping By.
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