When I use to ask students about their favorite part of school, what do you think the overwhelming response was from them? Recess? Nope. Lunch. Guess again. Guided reading? YES!!!! Actually, they would not say guided reading. They would tell me things like spending time at the table with you reading. Gush! My heart would absolutely melt! Spending time reading with the teacher was their favorite part of school!

Now honestly, I can say, I sincerely lacked confidence in teaching guided reading when I first taught kindergarten many years back. Pretty much, I was thrown into a classroom that was formerly a storage room a week after school started because the enrollment was high. I was told to teach guided reading with only access to a room full of leveled readers. Thankfully, I had that! I discovered that I LOVED teaching children to read, even though I was not the best at it initially. For sure, I was a work in progress for a while. I can’t say I was an instant pro at it my first year. Hopefully, I did not scar those students from my first year of teaching kindergarten for life haha! I know I can’t be the only one to think that about their first year of teaching! It was not until my third year of teaching kindergarten that I finally felt confident at teaching children how to read.

To save you some trial and error, I want to share some of my teaching strategies with you that will hopefully help you to teach guided reading more confidently. 

1. Regroup Frequently- Evaluate where students are frequently, and regroup based on those evaluations. Now I am not talking about giving them 100+ formal assessments. Teach, of course! Performance assessments are your guide and work seamlessly during guided reading as you teach. Checklists and running records are both great performance assessments to give you the feedback you need to adjust your reading groups as needed. That way, students are always being challenged at the appropriate level. Having a list of clear guidelines on when students should move up to another reading level helps a bunch too. You will still have to evaluate things like beginning sounds if they have not mastered those, but many things can be assessed through performance during a reading lesson to help you make decisions on regrouping.

2. Build Up- It would not make sense to teach a student on paragraph writing if they did not know how to write words, nor would it make sense to teach a student how to read level C readers if they don’t have a firm foundation with the alphabet. Teaching effectively means finding out where the student is and guiding that student from there. If they know most of their alphabet letters and sounds and have a firm foundation with print concepts, give them level A. If they only know a handful of letters and sounds, that preschool level AA is going to help that sweetie a bunch! The child is going to build confidence, even if you have one or two children that have to spend the whole year on that level. I tell you, you will see growth when you continue to build from where they are. In my professional opinion, building up from where a student is with their reading development is by far the most effective strategy you can utilize when it comes to teaching reading. If you are doing that, students are going to flourish in reading.

3. Let them read. -Don’t fluff it full with other junk. From the research I read, they should be reading. Sure, you will need to include some things that support the learning of reading such as sight words and word work, but make sure the bulk of the time is spent on actually reading. Keep those other activities short and sweet.

4. Support Your Readers- Having that small group time to focus on word work activities to build up phonics skills, teach sight words, stretch comprehension, and to build and write sentences is very valuable to supporting the learning of reading.  Keep these activities short and sweet, of course. For example, one day, you may have students identify the missing letters out of three words. Another day, you may have the students mix and fix them. During word work, students may sort words that end with the b & d sound. Another day, they may build some CVC words. Since these activities are only focused on a small bit, they can be completed within a few minutes each. The goal is to support the reading, not take over the reading lesson.

5. Keep it engaging- When completing sight word and work work activities, keep it hands-on and visual to keep your students engaged. Technology is also another engaging method to use. If you actually have enough tablets or iPads, I actually have a resource that includes digital formats. (It also includes everything printable too, so a teacher can be hybrid with it.)

Click here to learn more about the guided reading bundle

6. Teach Reading Strategies with Memorable Characters- Children love characters. We know that a popular world renown cartoonist has proven that! You may have used the popular Lips the Fish and Eagle Eye reading strategies before. However, there are other reading strategies for decoding texts that students need to learn that lacked a fun character to help make it more memorable. I got to work and created some more characters to help teach those strategies. One character, my son helped me come up with the name, is Left-to-Right Gecko. This is simply teaching children the print concept of reading left-to-right.

7. Have fun! Young students love spending time with their teacher. (Remember my story at the beginning?) Just be authentic. Enjoy that time with your students. Laugh, be goofy, and make it a fun place to be. You will make a big impact just by being engaged with them as they read.

I hope these teaching strategies help you to soar with your guided reading instruction. Make sure to sign-up for email on the right, so you can receive more posts like this from me. Also, I have a guided reading sample of level B freebie for you when you sign-up for email!

Click here to get it

Thanks so much for stopping by the Candy Class!

Jolene  🙂

Hi everyone! Today, I want to share some ideas for teaching contractions that will help you cover all the bases of various learning styles, and yes, you read the title correct. I also have an exclusive and unique freebie in this post!

1. Start with a formal classroom introduction when teaching contractions. This can include an anchor chart and mini-lesson. A simple way is to start off by defining contractions. To strengthen those connections in the brain for the purposes of being able to recall the word contraction more easily, give a bit of a vocabulary lesson for the word contract, which means to become smaller or shrink. You can even strengthen those connections more with some sensory by giving students a string and having them contract their “snakes.” This is a good way to get the attention of those fidgety sweeties too. 😉 For guided practice, you can write the two words on the board that forms a contraction, and the class says the contraction as they contract with their strings. You can then write the contraction on the board. You could also just say the words and have students say the words back, but I think the more you involve the senses, the better they all remember. Also, this helps your visual learners too.

Here are some ideas for independent practice: 

2. Contract them on paper. This activity is very ideal for your kinesthetic learners! There is just something about physically contracting the paper into a contraction. You can write these yourself on paper and simply fold.

I decided to make have some fun with this concept by making some “boa contractions.” Kids love fun themes. I made sure to draw them up as friendly boa contractions. 😉

Find the boa contractions by clicking here.

3. Make it relevant with a contraction hunt. Just like a lesson in geometry, you would show how shapes are all around. It’s important for students to be able to see how contractions are all around them. Students can hunt contractions as they read. You can always point out how contractions tend to be used most in quotes from characters in most books. This will help them to know where to look and give some extra attention to quotes! When you get ready to teach formal and information English, you got some prior knowledge you can tap on with this. 😉

To hold students accountable and to add some more sensory for memory purposes (brain research strategies about using more senses), I recommend they write them down on a graphic organizer or in a notebook.

 

4. Hold your tongue. This really connects to relevancy above too, and it is a good activity for reaching your auditory learners. This is a one day activity that extends across their other activities. For the day, you encourage students to pay attention to how much they actually speak with contractions. When they hear themselves say a contraction, they must “hold their tongue”. Their tongue is actually this freebie bracelet I am providing below. Basically, they hold the tongue on the bracelet when they hear themselves saying a contraction while speaking. If they hear a friend saying a contraction, they can ask their friend to hold their “tongue.” It is a good idea to do this activity on a day where you know your students will be doing some social learning activities throughout the day. If you like, students can write some contractions on the bracelet portion before wearing it.  Click here to snag up the free contraction bracelet activity.

5. Write with contractions. I am all about moving students from foundational knowledge to higher order thinking. Therefore, I think it is always important to require some creativity and application rolled up into one from students. Writing is the perfect opportunity for this. You can write a list of word pairs for students to use and give them some writing prompts (your choice). I recommend students be encouraged to use dialogue containing contractions.

I have a fun writing activity where some boa constrictors have not been forming their contractions around Pet Town and have overtaken the town. Students create a writing piece about this and use contractions in their writing.

Scavenging resources for teaching a concept can be daunting at times. I created this unit for teaching contractions that includes the anchor chart, a mini-lesson, the boa contractions, a contraction hunt activity, task cards, interactive notebook/journal options, no prep printables, the writing project, a quick check, and assessments! You can find Contractions: All You Need to Teach It Unit here. (Note: I came up with the string idea from number one after creating this unit, but you can squeeze the idea in there easily with the mini-lesson. All you need is some string, a dry erase marker, and a board.)

Hi everyone! Today, I want to talk tech. Specifically, I want to talk about assessing students’ technology work.

I know many years ago when the technology was not as advanced as it was today, I was told by administration that I needed to incorporate more technology use in the classroom. How many of you have been there and been like with what software? I am sure I can’t be the only one! Here was me. A teacher told to do that and only given special software for students with IEP’s, in ESL classes, and one other software that was only good for whole instruction with a projector. What was I suppose to do for the rest of the students when it was time for them to use the computer? I was clueless and not as talented with creating digital anythings back then, and they did not offer us much more guidance than throw equipment at us with those limited software I just mentioned and preach to use the equipment. I was happy for the tools in my classroom. Oh yeah! I wanted to make the most of them. For sure! I did use a few free games at the time, but finding resources that offered a way for me to truly assess a student’s work on that computer was not there. My technology use in the class became a center for reinforcing skills, which was still good. I am no way complaining about that because my first year teaching had one of those green screen things, lol! Also, we don’t have to grade everything, and students do tend to stay more engaged on the computer. However, for something so engaging for student learning, it just would make sense to have a way to pop in and actually be able to assess their work on the computer to know they are spending quality time learning on the computer. (If anything, to make sure they are staying where I told them to go on the computer while I was busy with a reading group, lol!)

AND I think that is what I really like about using Google Apps for learning in the classroom. Their work is saved automatically, so you can pop up every now and then to make sure they are on track and having quality learning moments on the computer or tablet. Sure there are a lot of apps out there, but you can’t really go back on many of them to actually see the student’s work. That to me is a big drawback with lots of them. I mean, they do have their perks too. Students often are given automatic feedback on their work with many of those apps. They need that too. I would not say abandon ship on using apps with no assessment features. They have a place too. I just think there needs to be a balance struck there. We need to be viewing students work regularly to keep up with where they are and where they need to go. Sure, we got those big state tests, lol! 😉 Maybe the software actually gives you a vague teaching report too. However, us true teacher breeds know it is that day-to-day performance assessment that should be at the heart of how we drive instruction for the next week to come. I don’t know about you, but my best assessment comes from viewing authentic student work, not some vague report. This really gives me the best insight on what a student needs from me, so I can give them the best instruction possible. With students utilizing more and more technology in the classroom, Google Apps used in conjunction with Google Classroom, is really a great tool for performance assessments. After all, students don’t even have to save their work. It is saved for your viewing automatically.

Imagine students doing quality word work with digital magnetic letters, and you being able to go back and view how they did! Like so cool, you can’t even do that with real magnetic letters and dry/erase cards usually. All possible with Google Apps! See this video to see this in action. I am then able to go back and see student work on there!

Here is the link to my this resource and other resources created for Google Classroom use

Imagine students working with grammar and vocabulary digital cards, and you are able to go back and see their progress! Totally possible now! There really is so much students can now do digitally with you being able to assess their work, and Google Apps is a great resource for that! It’s going to help you be a better teacher because you are providing engaging work that can also be assessment driven!

What tools are you using to assess student work on the computer/tablet? How many of you are going 1:1 this year? I would love to have a conversation below in the comments! 🙂

I have joined in with a link up.

Jolene 🙂

 

Hi everyone! I had an idea several months ago. What if students read through some or all of their memory books on video, and the video was shared with parents as a keepsake gift? Then I had to go make things complicated thinking it involved some app and possibly even screen shots to use that app. So I placed the idea on the shelf until recently when it occurred to me that the already existing “camcorder” on a phone or tablet was really all that was needed after all.

 

 

 

Now I really recommend you get with your tech department to set it up, but I have provided some links to some helpful tutorials below that will help you with using the resource. Your school will need to sign-up for it for you to have access to Classroom by Google. It is free though! However, currently, only non-profit educational institutions can use it, and I recommend that you have that set-up ahead of time before purchasing one of my resources that are compatible with it.

Google has this Classroom 101 video that you should definitely check-out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K26iyyQMp_g

This post from History from the Middle includes some step-by-step pictures of setting up and giving students assignments in Google Classroom:
http://www.historyfromthemiddle.com/2016/02/the-basics-of-using-google-classroom.html?m=1

Here is another one about Classroom and setting it up from Adventures in ISTEM:
http://adventuresinistem.blogspot.com/2015/07/technology-tuesday-setting-up-your_21.html?m=0

This post has a video that shows you how to give an assignment. It also shows you how to make a copy for a student. This is important because you definitely don’t want your student editing your original file. I highly recommend you check out this video from Tools for Teachers from Laurah J.
http://esolodyssey.learningwithlaurahj.org/2016/01/tech-tip-tuesday-google-classroom-tips.html?m=1

This post from Chalk & Apples has some helpful tips for using the Google Classroom resource in your class and includes some lessons they learned the hard way, so you don’t have to do that!
http://teachingtrio.blogspot.com/2015/02/tech-thursday-making-google-drive-work.html

This post from What’s New with Leah includes some troubleshooting tips.
http://www.whatsnewwithleah.blogspot.com/2016/01/troubleshooting-in-google-classroom-for.html

This post from Secondgradealicious had some tips on passwords with younger learners.
http://secondgradealicious.blogspot.ca/2014/11/google-apps-for-primary-classroom.html

This post from The Darling English Teacher includes some good points of why you should go digital:
http://thedaringenglishteacher.blogspot.com/2015/12/creating-digital-classroom.html?m=1

Still want some more reasons to go digital? Check out this blog post by What’s New with Leah:
http://www.whatsnewwithleah.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-top-5-reasons-to-go-digital.html

I hope these posts I found for you help you out a bunch! This certainly is not the full list of tutorials out there, and if you have questions, I encourage you to google it because you will be able to find access to tutorials that have images posted to help guide you through it more easily.

Thanks for stopping by the Candy Class!

Jolene 🙂

PS. Note, I am not affiliated or associated with Google™ or any product from them. Nor do they endorse this post. This is simply an informational post with link resources to help you in your digital teaching journey.

Hi everyone! Tis’ the season to be thankful. One thing I am incredibly grateful for is the ability to share my talents with so many educators from all over. I am sharing this Thanksgiving Turkey turkey craft as a way to say thank you to everyone! I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving full of contentment and thankfulness. This freebie incorporates the prefix re-, and it is NO PREP! Gobble! Gobble! Woo! Hoo!

Click on the turkey picture or here to link to the freebie in my TPT store. I have some more crafty freebies planned, so make sure to sign-up for email on the right to know when I post something new.

 

I just created this blog exclusive freebie! I do request that if you feel generous, share the blog link instead of the resource please.Click here or on the picture to grab your copy of the build-a-place value chart. 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway