Guided Reading and Center Activities

Hi Y'all! Hope you're having a wonderful October. I can't believe our first 9 weeks are already over. Boy is time flying. My kiddos are moving right along and I greatly attribute that to what's happening during our reading block. To start, the curriculum we use for whole group is the BEST. If you haven't heard of DSC or Making Meaning I highly suggest you check it out and beg your administrator to use it! It does such a good job of having the students lead the discussions, analyze and interpret awesome texts, interact with each other through partner and group discussions, use higher order thinking, and problem solving. Can I just reemphasize that it uses real children's literature like Chrystanthemum by Kevin Henkes, Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, and It's Mine by Leo Lionni to name a few. Such a nice change and it makes the kids truly love reading and listening to stories.

Other than that I have been using a few different intervention systems for my guided reading instruction such as LLI (Fountas and Pinell), and the school wide Intervention system for phonics (also DSC) SIPPS. Our interventions require all of our students to read daily, practice sight words, phonics, and writing. I love that it incorporates writing even for my students reading at a Level A or 1. It's a great opportunity to have structured writing time where I can monitor their writing in small groups. 

Enough with the programs we use, the real reasons I wanted to write this post it to show you the additional support I am using with my children in centers. It's so important but challenging to find activities that can be differentiated easily for each group, done independently, are rigorous, and engaging enough for the children to actually enjoy and learn. I definitely don't have my centers perfected, but each year they are greatly improving and I think I found a system that I really like. It allows me to differentiate and it ties in perfectly with my Differentiated Spelling Instruction for the year! (I'll write more about that later)

I rotate my center activities frequently and have been trying a new system so I can differentiate their centers to meet their current needs and abilities. Every day they do guided reading with me and sight word activities (which can be seen and purchased here).  Three or four out of the 5 days they do a word work activity (can be purchased by clicking the picture above). On a word work "off day"they have the option of listening center, media center check out, writing center, computers/iPad, or reading in our class library. These get rotated out so they it's not repetitive.

I chose 3 - 4 "word work"centers and put them in a colored envelope to match their center's groups. Each group will do all of the word work activities throughout the week, but only one group does that specific word work activity a day. This allows me to use different spelling patterns/words that match their current abilities. For example, next week we're doing a picture/word sort for short vowels, beginning sounds, and matching capital letters to lower case letters. This way ALL of my students do a "picture/word sort activity"but it meets their needs instead of being 1 activity across the board.





Each group has a "black holder" that keeps their center's work folders, word work holder, and reader's response journals. They keep these at their group tables to minimize movement throughout the class during center time.





One thing I love about the word work centers other than the differentiation it allows, is that all of the activities are super interactive. My kids LOVE making their spelling words into necklaces, and building words with tiles or by rolling a dice.

Their reader's response journals directly correlate to a book we read during making meaning, our vocabulary instruction, or a book they read in IDR (Independent Reading). I emphasize using the text to support their answers and love their responses! I would say they are 95% independent in this center, but working in groups greatly eliminates teacher interventions.

One activity they can do in writing center is the "Sticker Story". They choose 3 stickers and create a story from that. I also allow them to write letter, send "post cards, free write or practice handwriting.

Listening center is pretty relaxed, I used to require a response sheet but I feel like I really just want my children's focus to be on enjoying the story and hearing a fluent reader, so I allow them to listen to more than one book instead of focusing on their response sheet.

Computers/iPad there are obviously a zillion website resources. My kids use bookflix.com or MyOn.com (a reading intervention program). My main focus is having them interact with engaging text, and listen to fluent readers.  Sometimes I will let them get on other reading websites, but it's not my preference because a lot of time they get on things that aren't focused on the skills they need to practice, it's just songs or games they know and like.

 

I hope this helps give you some new ideas for your literacy center/reading block! I love the way it's going so far this year. If you have any questions please post below!

Weekly Sight Word Work

I'm currently using a sight word system one of my fellow first grade teachers, Jodi Wuthrich, showed me when I first started teaching at Grand and absolutely love it! Click here for the freebie version this weeks sight word rotation which is a "St. Patrick's" Day Theme! :)

Each morning during our morning meeting we read our weekly poem which teaches the kids 5 sight words a week. I like to choose poems that correlate with the season, month, holiday, or science/social studies topic we're learning at the time. If I can't find or create one that meets the sight words I want to teach, I'll use any poem to make it work. I typically teach 3 - 4 new sight words and review a previous sight word I've noticed they're still misspelling/having difficulty with.

After we read the poem in the morning, we do the chant "Hickety Pickety" reciting that days'  sight word. 

At centers the students rotate between the following 5 activities…

Cut & Sort

Make A Word

Rainbow Write

I used purchased "roll a sight word" from Christine-Besser but have now made my own. 

 Read & Illustrate

*(I swap this out as Sight Word Center and "Fluency/Reading Center")

Her illustration of "March Winds"

Read, Stamp, Write 

I have them keep their center work in a folder and collect and review it at the end of the week. This holds them accountable for completing their work. 

If you like these centers and want more, please check out my sight word system by month on TeachersPayTeachers.

Literacy Centers Revamp

Have you ever had a group of kids that were different from any of your other groups before? Your typical routines, activities, and structures for the classroom just don't seem to work anymore.  Well my group is THAT group this year. 

When the school year started, I kept the things that worked from the year before, and modified, adapted or simply changed the things that didn't previously work. I was confident that this year would be unstoppable. Boy was I wrong. Even with the modifications for the new and improved year, this class gave me a run for my money!

I have boys. Lots of boys. And with boys you get wiggly bodies, talkative mouths, fart noises, and LOTS of running, moving, sliding, stomping, flipping, falling, and rolling. I used to have a literacy center system in place that kept my children working in small groups moving from one center to another as they completed the task, like flow chart. 

Last year this worked GREAT! My kids were focused, on task, and I was able to pull my guided reading groups as needed without a problem. Yes, one or two of my kids needed reminders, or additional support to finish their work, but not like this year. This year, if I'm not standing next to and/or holding about 7 of my kids hands, there work will NEVER get done, not to mention the rolling, crawling, and madness that ensued with the "free roam" of the class. 

My guided reading groups were suffering so I knew my old system just had to go. I talked with a few other teachers and with the help from my AMAZING reading coach, Jenny DaCosta, I was able to think up a new system, with lots of timing and structure.  For most, this is probably seen as a more traditional center rotation, but was a big change for me. It still allows my children to focus on word work, fluency/reading, writing, and sight words every day.

The children's faces stay in the same spot but I swap the pictures out for the new activity for the day. They rotate to each center in a circle and I call the students for guided reading groups as necessary. I do 10 minute intervals for each center (using a timer), 1 minute clean up time (using a timer) then we switch. 

Our new rules for centers: 

1. No moving from your table AT ALL. Use the materials at that table and if you need help ask a buddy from your group only. (This may seem harsh - but it's absolutely necessary for some of my boys).
2. When the timer goes off they hear a bell and must stop what they're doing, and immediately cross their arms to touch their shoulders (also crosses midline which refocuses them). - Once their eyes are on me, I give them clean up instructions.
3. During clean up you only clean up YOUR table and surrounding floor area, once again NO MOVING throughout the room. 
4. When bell goes off again after clean up - do arm cross signal and switch to the next table as a class.

Lastly, for my kids who took 45 minutes to not even finish 1 task, they now have to sit at that center until it's completed without being able to switch with their group…this surprisingly enough motivates them (even though it's the same concept that was in place before).

Regardless, it seems to be working although a few of my children still have trouble staying seated the whole 10 minutes, it's a lot less interruptions and a much more meaningful use of time for both them and me!