Intro....Guided Reading Workshop!

The name of what I am doing and so original isn't it? So, I promised that I would do a blog post this week on my 'new and improved' reading instruction! I am not doing anything super new but I loved it this week (the whole 2.5 days I got to do it anyway). (Oh...snow days)

Guided Reading Workshop basically is this: Daily 5 with a teacher table station. Rotate every 10-15 minutes and go to a new station. At the teacher table students are getting direct reading instruction on a comprehension concept. I am starting out with our basal series and only differentiating the comprehension activities. 

Here are the stations that we do in our 'Guided Reading Workshop' Rotations.

Teacher Table

-Direction Comprehension Instruction

I-pad

-Assignment or phonics App

Raz-Kids

-Read at level text on i-pad. Listen to it, record yourself reading it and take quiz.

Writing

-Students either have an assignment or work in their February Writing Prompt Journal

Literacy Station

-One station bucket is set out and that is their assignment for the day.

This station covers a language standard or the phonics skill for the week.

Here is the rotation board that we use. It looks a lot like Daily 5 and guided math type stuff!

When we switch I simply jingle some bells and say, "Quietly head to rotation #2.."

That is why there are numbers above each card. It makes it really easy for kids to see which rotation they are going to!

I wanted to also show you the kind of activities I did this week with the kids at the teacher table. I will try to blog about our differentiated activities each week to help you out too if this is something you want to try in your room!

Like I said before; we all read the same story this week but worked at a different level on the comprehension concepts. 

To begin our week we worked on confirming predictions.

I did a mini-lesson with the whole class to go over the concept and I read Snowzilla by: Janet Lawler.

Students wrote a prediction on a small piece of paper--we snowballed it and then opened up our predictions (quickly). Then we read on and confirmed our predictions.

Then, I introduced station activities and we were off!

At the teacher table the students and I read the story, "Rolling Rice Cakes." (Part of our Basal)

It is actually a great story so yes, I used the basal this week but don't worry---only the story ha ha!

We worked on confirming predictions in small group too!

Here are some pictures!

For this lesson it was really nice to be able to watch the students do write their predictions and confirm them.

1. It was nice because I could have a discussion with each one of them

2. I could help with writing mechanics!

From now on though I will probably do a prediction lesson as a whole class because it didn't take too long and it's something they have down so no more need for small group instruction anymore!

The next day (I got observed this day AHH)--the skill was sequencing. I started out with a mini-lesson.

I read the students the story, "The Snow Day" by: Ezra Jack Keats.

Then, we sequenced the story. I simply typed up events from the story and we sequenced the cards in a pocket chart. Quick and easy! --Confession: My students forgot was sequencing was!! People we basically had 8 days of school in January...so regression is an understatement!

After we sequenced the story we were OFF for our Guided Reading Workshop fun!

On this day students had a different writing assignment. The day before we learned a little about Walruses and completed an anchor chart of "How to Brush Walrus Teeth." Their writing assignment was to write their 'how to' writing during their writing station.

At the teacher table we re-read, "The Rolling Rice Cake." This is where the differentiation really came into play!

We worked on sequencing like I said before--each group did it a bit differently!

This is the activity I completed with my struggling students. We read the story, sequenced the cards and then numbered the cards on the sequencing sheet. 

The next group had to make their own cards--they were excited about this!! They had to choose one event from the beginning, two from the middle and the last event in the story to include on their sequencing cards. This was already great practice to gain the big idea of the page!

My higher group make a sequencing book. On each page of the book they wrote about what happened on each page in the story. They were working a lot of identifying the big idea of each page and putting it into their own words. We worked for 2 days on this together.

Sometimes I will have students at the teacher table finish early and you better believe they're not just going to sit there. So, I have extra story response copies made for those extra few minutes that some of the students may have.

I had two students finish their sequencing activity early so they wrote about their favorite part in the story.

Today, we read a story called, "The Rat and The Cat." (Also, in basal)

Today, we worked on comparing and contrasting the two stories we read this week.

This is how I differentiated this one:

Some students cut and paste comparison cards like seen above.

Some students sorted the cards and wrote the comparisons.

Other students came up with and wrote their own comparisons between the two stories.

The mini-lesson on this day was not about comparing and contrasting because that would take too long.

Instead, we did a mini-lesson on what their literacy station activity was.

Here is what we did before we got started on Guided Reading Workshop on this day!

Today, I began the lesson by asking kids if they have ever come across a big word and could not figure it out?! Hands shot in the air... and then I said the magic word...syllables. Today, I taught students to recognize syllables in a word and how to separate them to sound them out when they come up in something that we are reading. We matched two parts of a word together to make the words you see above.

Then, we practiced finding words with 2 syllables in the poem above. I completed the first three sentences with them and sent them on their way with their reading buddy. They highlighted it, re-read them poem together and then illustrated to show understanding of the poem.

When they finished I said, "So...guess what you literacy station is today... and they pointed right to the pocket chart!" There is their literacy station activity above! I allowed them to use the cards on the pocket chart to make the words and then complete the form. They LOVED it! They kept taking turns because the 'teacher' during literacy station with their group members! (insert - melting heart)

So, why 'guided reading workshop' you ask?

...Because, I get to differentiate each lesson to my students needs and I really get to see WHAT they know and I am there to support them when they need it!

Normally after teaching reading I am feeling exhausted and like I didn't do a good enough job... I don't feel that way right now. I feel really great about the instruction my students got this week and I feel like I finally got to meet all of their needs! Not to mention... I wasn't tired ONE BIT!! It was so calm and such a great learning environment!!

Stay tuned for next week!