An update on joy

I am finding it!!  I want to sing from the rooftops!!  Believe me, teaching phonics and struggling readers is not easy, and there are days when I want to pull my hair out BUT each day has gotten a little bit better.  One of the things I wanted to share with you all is my reading schedule for each day.  For my lower level readers I need STRUCTURE and I am finding that their attention span is so short that if I just keep us moving along, things go much easier.  I have a 90 minute reading block each day.  I try to keep those 90 minutes packed full!
9:00-9:15 whole group phonics lesson
9:15-9:30 centers/daily 5-rotation 1
9:30-9:45 rotation 2
9:45-10:00 rotation 3 or second whole group lesson depending on the need/the day
10:00-10:15 rotation 4
10:15-10:30 read aloud

For my first whole group lesson I have been using phonic poems, rhymes and songs (thank you Kaitlyn) that I have found on the internet as a class warm-up.  We have used wikki-stix to identify words with short a and long a sounds.

During rotations or centers students have the choice or read to self from books that are just right for them, listen to a story, word work (continuing our phonics practice) or a computer program called Imagine Learning- it's awesome.  While the students are working on one of those things, I have a group with me and we are working on decodable books.

My optional 2nd lesson is usually a vocabulary or sight word lesson
For my read a loud I am trying to follow along with our basil but jazz it up a little bit.  This week second graders are reading The Mixed Up Chameleon so we have been looking at a variety of Eric Carle books. 

Now that I have a structure in place I feel like a much more effective teacher.  I still have days where my expectations are too high but I am getting somewhere.  In my short time with this group I have already seen some progress and that is so uplifting!

So my question to you is, what is the structure of your reading block?  Do you have a group of struggling readers, what do you do with them?

Finding My Joy...A Call to Help!

Hi blogging friends!  I am happy to be back "talking" with you after what feels like a long time!  Please let me explain my absence...school started and WHOA!

I am hoping that I can recruit you to help me out with teaching struggling second grade readers.  Do you have any books you suggest that I read or lessons or tips that I should try?  I am teaching the struggling reading group this year and I am not finding the joy---YET!  We all have those things about teaching that truly bring us joy- something that you can cling on to even when the rest of the day doesn't go as planned.  For me, this has always been helping children discover that they LOVE reading.  It might be guiding a student to a book that they can't put down, or helping a student find an author that they love so much they go out and read every book that that author has ever written.  I have never found that same joy in helping students identify letters, letter sounds or rhyme and that is where my group is at right now.  I am so anxious to get them to the next step that I don't feel like I am giving my best instruction.  So- please, point me in the right direction, help me find that joy in these struggling readers!

Just around the corner

Phew. I have a couple of days rest between visitors and I finally have the chance to hop online and catch up on all the posts I've missed!  I have truly enjoyed my slightly hectic summer so far and it is nice to be forced to not think about school and work!  Instead, I have enjoyed the beauty of Washington!

As soon as my guests left, my mind switched back to school.  I have taken on a lot of additional responsibilities this year, aside from the typical "back-to-school stuff," and I am beginning to realize that August/school is just around the corner!  I was reading this list of 21 Things that Will be Obsolete by 2020 and I started to get even more anxious! Number 15 is Paid/Outsourced Professional Development.  My district has taken the leap toward trusting teachers to run professional development for the district and guess whose team was asked to be the first guinea pigs!  I truly view it as an honor that the district I work for trusts my skills and the skills of my teammates to ask us to lead a professional development day for all 3-5th grade elementary teachers in the district.  I was so excited when we started talking about the possibility in April.  Now, now that the date is set and is less than a month away, I am beginning to question my common sense!  I can't believe that I agreed to lead a workshop on August 21st- less than a week before school starts!!  You know, despite the stress that I will certainly feel, I am still very flattered that I get this opportunity and I just hope that my peers treat me and my team well!  We are leading a day on interventions and how to use data to form your intervention.  It should be a productive day with plenty of time for teachers to work with their own data.  I know that no matter how fantastic we will still get negative reviews, but I will need to brush them off and know that I did my best and my team and I have the best interests of the students at heart!

Expect an update sometime this week on A Courage to Teach.  I am almost finished and it has been a fantastic read.  It is one of those books that you read slowly so that you can stop and reflect/remember the amazing words on the page! Looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you.

More from Daily 5!

I have heard some people say that the structure of Daily 5 doesn't allow for direct instruction.  This opinion has always interested me- especially because I am leaving tomorrow for a workshop with Anita Archer (the master of explicit instruction).  I can see the benefits of direct, explicit instruction and I can see the benefit of giving students the time to practice reading.  Gail and Joan actually addressed this concern during the workshop and I was so glad that they did!

The typical structure of Daily 5 could look like:

7-10 minute lesson (direct instruction)
20-30 minute rotation
7- 10 minute lesson (direct instruction)
20-30 minute rotation
7-10 minute lesson (direct instruction)
20-30 minute rotation
7-10 minute lesson (direct instruction)

That is 4 separate times throughout the day where the teacher is directly instructing students on reading strategies.  In other words, 20% of the day is direct instruction while 80% of the day students are practicing reading.  For me, this makes sense.  Have you heard of the 10,000 hour rule?  This idea comes from Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers.  Basically, it means that experts become experts because they practice more than other people.  Specifically, "experts" practice a skill for around 10,000 hours.  Don't we want our kiddos to become expert readers?  I know that my students don't always have opportunities to read at home.  Their house might not be a safe place, they might not have access to books or they might be moving from place to place each night and can't keep track of books.  If I want to close the achievement gap and I want my students to be able to have the same opportunities as any other child their age, then I need to give them the time to practice at school!

My plan for the upcoming school year is to implement the structure of Daily 5 during my 90 minute reading block.  We do ability group our students (which I know is a "no-no" according to the sisters) and that has worked for my team and I in the past.  During my block I will hold 4 7-minute mini lessons and 3 20-minute Daily 5 rotations.  The students don't have to do each option every day.  In fact, read to self and work on writing will be 2 required rotations each day.  The third rotation will be their choice.  They will also be able to choose which order they complete their rotations.

Okay, now on to thinking how I am going to integrate the content areas into my literacy block...

See you in a week! Wish me luck with Anita Archer! :)

Daily 5 Conference

I survived the last day of school!  All of my kiddos are deeply into their second day of summer vacation and I just wrapped up the Daily 5 and Cafe training that I was fortunate enough to attend.  You might not believe that I get to go to so many conferences.  I know that not everyone is as lucky as me, but look- that's me in the scarf (in June- I live in the pnw) with my teammates and the sisters!

The workshop was DELIGHTFUL.  The sisters have such a wonderful rapport and presence that I can honestly say I was engaged 90% of the time (which isn't true for many workshops I've attended).  I have been a newbie on the daily 5/ cafe train and was so excited to learn from the masters and they didn't disappoint! In fact, I learned so much that I will probably stretch out all of the information into manageable chunks over multiple posts...the sisters taught me that!

My first reflection and "a-ha" of the workshop was on engagement and motivation.  The sisters highly recommended this book: In a Reading State of Mind by Fisher, Frey, Lapp

From their research they noted that students are motivated to read when:

• They have access to a wide range of materials
• We (as teachers) trust them enough to choose what they want to read
• They are given ample opportunities to engage in sustained reading
• They are allowed to socially interact with others about the text
• Classroom incentives reflect the value and importance of reading

Well, duh!  As I was sitting there listening to this I couldn't help but think about my own experience with reading especially in regards to the social interaction.  I obviously crave that social interaction otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog!  How do you cultivate that love of reading if you don't allow your kiddos to talk with each other about books!  I have seen a couple of different ways to do this and I recently pinned an adorable book recommendation chart on Pinterest.  I am thinking about making our book recommendations a little bigger this year and I am curious to know what y'all think! 

My students in the past have written their own blogs.  I use the host site at www.weebly.com and it is free to use and you can sign up students for their own account while you still have administrative access over it.  In the past, I would give them a topic to write about and they would go to the computer and write about it.  Their friends could go to their site and leave comments as well as parents or other family members who knew the web address.  I am thinking that next year I will have the kiddos add a book recommendation page on to their blog.  They can write a review of the book they are reading.  Family and friends can read it and leave comments.  I was also thinking that just like many of us do- the students can leave comments on friends blogs telling them to check out a book review they just wrote because they know their friend will love it.

My wheels are spinning! I learned so much.  If you have the opportunity to check out the 2 Sisters, I highly recommend it!

I am a Reader!

Like I have said before, I am feeling the crunch of state testing.  I know that if I am feeling it, my kiddos are feeling it- so I decided to take a step back today and talk about what it is that we LOVE about reading.  No multiple choice, author's purpose or text evidence necessary!  We started by brainstorming some things that we love about reading and then grouped them into categories.  I was so surprised to see my kiddos identifying that they love the people they read with, the places they read and they all had a favorite book!  All of the students identifying a different favorite book was a big one for me.  I have found in the past that I get a ton of Diary of a Wimpy Kids on their lists but know that they haven't even read the book!  Check out what some of the kiddies wrote!

 

So cute! It was nice to take a breather and remember that I teach reading because I want the kids to LOVE reading.  I don't teach reading so that they can pass a test!

 

Author's Purpose

My group has been working hard at determining the author's purpose.  It seems like it is finally starting to click for them and I couldn't be happier! I found some wonderful resources through pinterest to help the students along the way.  So, I thought I would give back by sharing my go-to author's purpose organizer- that I created! (The cute squiggle border is from Graphics on the Pond- free on TpT)

I use the organizer for a variety of things- sorting book titles into the appropriate category, organizing the attributes of the different purposes, and anything else we might think of that day!  Hope it can be as useful to you as it is to me!  Click this link to access the Google Docs pdf version of the organizer.

The posters are free from Mrs. Gilchrist's Class
The paper plate PIE is from: 2nd Grade with Mrs. Wade