Guided Reading and The Common Core State Standards

    

 



      Many teachers have asked if guided reading still has a place with the Common Core State Standards.  Guided reading is an instructional technique in which teachers load much of their instruction up front. They often preview challenging words to decode and vocabulary words that may be unfamiliar.  Often teachers also give students background about a topic covered by the text that may be unfamiliar to the age and background of our students.
     The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in general de-emphasizes pre-reading strategies in favor of students digging deeply into texts and figuring out challenging words and ideas by "wrestling" with the text itself.  This instructional technique is called close reading.



     So, back to my original question.  Does traditional guided reading still have a place in our classrooms today?  It is my belief that overusing a guided reading approach does not encourage students to use any strategies when they are reading for pleasure or during an assessment.  However, there is still a need in our classrooms to use some guided reading techniques.
     This year I have a small group of students that really struggle with comprehension and fluency.  They don't like reading and are not able to find or stick with good fit books.  Their Daily 5 reading is totally deviod of thinking or strategizing.  Despite my repeated attempts and teaching, they view reading as a passive process, often called "word calling" in the research on literacy instruction.  We're now in the second quarter. This just can't continue.  So... time to dust off guided reading, which is towards the bottom of my "bag o' tricks". 
     In my version of guided reading, I will still preview a few individual words, but I will also heavily use context clues to help the students discover for themselves what the words mean.  Then students will read the text once through, looking for the "main idea".  I am using a biography of Vasco da Gama which links in to our Social Studies unit on Explorers.  This picture book has some pretty hefty vocabulary.  The first time the students read the books, the task they will have to accomplish is to figure out where would be a good place to end the chapter, if the book was a chapter book.  Then they have to give the title a chapter and justify their choice.  They'll be marking the book with post-its, so if they need to revise their ideas they can.

Adventures in Literacy

We are nearing the end of the first month of school.  I have to rank this class as one of the most challenging of my career.  We are moving forward, but at a slower pace than I am accustomed to. 
     During Daily Five we are still working on building stamina.  Many students still just get up to get more books in the middle of it or talk to each other.  Most of that talking is innocent and impulsive, but the fact that they are still doing it shows that they are still working on stamina.  Normally I would be starting reading groups next week.  I still will, but many students will also begin the week with assigned seats that put them where I can see them and more than a single arms length from others (which is what we typically do).  This is the first step I take with students who are not building stamina.  After a week, they can have their choice back.  Make poor choices again and there are no more choices of where to sit.  This is how the CAFE Menu looked half way through individual reading inventories.  The "thumbs up" on the black paper represent the goals of each student.

      After a rough start (again-building stamina), Writing is going well.  I have seen some real improvement already using Lucy Calkins Units of Study.  Her techniques are simple enough that they are easy for students to implement.  They are very concrete as well.  This is how our Writer's Block looks as we are transitioning to from stamina lessons to craft lesssons-

There are lots of resources for students who need ideas to write about, including laminated pages from a costume catalog.

I also saw these descriptors for the four levels I used for Writing.  I thought I would add them to the display: Keep "TRI"- ing, Coming A-"ROUND", "SQUARE" Deal, and Love It!

     In the front of the room I added the class rules (below the board) and a cursive alphabet (above the board.

Displays 2013-2014: Everything Else

Whew,  I'm finally done setting up my classroom.  It always seems like I need more time than I get.  In the middle of this set-up week, a team-mate had her baby early (so we had to visit her, of course and help her long-term sub adjust) and our new Spelling/Vocabulary series arrived (time out to stamp it and deliver it to all the team).  But, all-in-all, I'm ready enough.

This bulletin board idea came from Teachers Pay Teachers.  Right now the pictures are just "place holders".  I'm going to have the kids design their own iPads with a "playlist" of books they have read or want to read.



 "How Much Signal Strength is Your Brain Using Today?" is from literacy specialist Jenn Jones of Hello Literacy. It's a kid-friendly version of Bloom's taxonomy.   This is on our big "team" bulletin board across from the bathrooms/Library.

 These balloons are from Really Good Stuff.  My students decorated them on Step Up Day in the spring.  I think it will be great for them to see something they created on the first day of school.

 These are a couple views of my classroom library.  As a mother of four and the daughter and daughter-in-law of teachers, I am lucky to have an extensive classroom library of about 3,000 titles.  I am also lucky to have a crafty husband to build all these shelves. 



CAFE Menu for Intermediate Students FREEBIE

I have been using The Daily Five and CAFE as my reading workshop structure for the past five years.  I read both books very early on and got to meet The Sisters just as they were gaining national attention.  I just love these ladies!  They have taken me from a good teacher to a great one.  Because of them, I have met so many like-minded people who have functioned as my digital mentors.  I just hope that I can given back to other teachers out there.
As one of the few pioneers with extensive experience using The Daily Five and CAFE with intermediate level students, I get lots of emails about how to adapt Daily 5 and CAFE.  So today I am sharing two adapted CAFE Menus.  One is for students transitioning from "learning to read" to "reading to learn".  It has less accuracy and fluency standards and more comprehension standards.  I use it with fourth graders.  The second menu is one I created to use with fifth graders or advanced fourth graders.  This menu is completely comprehension.  I recently recalibrated both menus to reflect the Common Core standards.   
I'd love some feedback on them.  Please leave a comment below.

Meeting the Needs of Advanced Students

     As much as I love Daily Five, I do miss the guided reading groups from the past.  I felt I accomplished a lot when I got to see two or three groups each day.  There are times that I would like to meet with more than one group, but I haven't been able to get my head around how I could make that happen.  That is until I purchased this new book by Evan-Moor:

 (This book comes in several different grade levels.  

Click HERE and it will take you to Amazon for more information.)

     I am a big fan of Evan-Moor's learning game books.  They have books for Reading, Vocabulary, Science, Writing, Math, and Geography.  All the materials are in full color and ready to use, which makes the games extremely quick and easy to put together.  They are also one of the few publishers that have learning games for the upper elementary grades.  

     In addition to the learning games in this book, it has answer keys and, most importantly, short assessments for each game.  It was the assessments that really got me thinking.  My advanced students are very hard-working and conscientious.  They are willing and capable of playing a game independently, but just having them play a game unsupervised does not hold them accountable enough.  So, using this resource, I decided to assign them a game each day, have them complete the matching assessment, and check themselves using the answer key.  The short assessments will keep them accountable for learning and the self-checking component will make it less work for me. :)

     The end of the year is a great time to try out new strategies that you may want to adopt for the entire year next year.  It's especially important during the "doldrums" after high-stakes testing to keep students motivated for the rest of the year.  Changing things up a bit can breathe new life into you students.  

     What kinds of things are YOU trying out in the last few weeks of the year?  How do you use learning games in you classroom?  How do you keep students accountable for information learned through game play?  I'd love to hear from you!

1, 2, 3: Gradually Releasing Responsibility

     The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model has been around for quite some time as a model of best practices.  I use it on a regular basis with my students.  But lately I have been thinking about how I have them be a part of this method.  I feel it's important to let students in on the "secrets" that make good teaching and learning.  For example, I already let students know when I am doing a formative assessment ("I can't help you with this assignment because right now I need to see what you can do by yourself.  This will tell me what and how I need to teach in the future.") and why I am using the results of that formative assessment to guide my instruction. (Today, friends, I am putting you into groups based on your score on that formative assessment you took last week...") . 

     The new Common Core standards ask us to increase the text complexity in our classrooms.  It is not enough just to have complex text for high stakes assessment.  Our students need to "wrestle" with highly complex text routinely in their classrooms.  We need to model how we attack a text that students have absolutely no background knowledge about.  We need to hold them accountable for the strategies we have taught them no matter what type of text they encounter.

     I decided the gradual release of responsibility model needed a catchy name and make-over.  GRR has become 1-2-3 in my classroom.  When I say:  "Today you have a 1-2-3 assignment."  or "Today's work in class is getting you ready to do a 1-2-3 assignment tomorrow.".  For a 1-2-3 assignment, students attack the text in three ways:

1-  Activate Thinking (gesture:  point to head with pointer finger).  At this point in the year my students know all the pre-reading strategies.  Instead of choosing one for them, I ask them to choose and share with a buddy.  Along with sharing the strategy, they also must share why they picked that particular one.  I also have them write this down.  It is important for students to remember that they must engage their brains before reading and that engagement can take many forms depending on their purpose as a reader.

2-  Read through the entire selection (gesture:  point to your eyes with two fingers).  Students need to read the assignment all the way through in order to get the "big picture".  Reading all the way through includes titles, captions, and headings.  

3-  Selective Reading (gesture:  left hand- hold up three fingers with one hand, "pick" them with the other)  Students should answer as many questions as they can.  Then they should look at the choices (if questions are multiple choice) and reread the selection selectively just to find the answer to these questions.  If you are asking the students to do short answer questions, have them start the answer (even if they don't know it) by turning the question around (also called TTQA).  Simply by writing down the words of the question, students will be able to know what key words they will need to focus on during the test. 

Comprehension Processes: An In-Depth Assessment

    

     I have long been interested in the work of Judith Westphal Irwin, an expert on reading comprehension.  She divides comprehension into five dimensions or processes:  microprocessing (chunking individual words into phrases), integration (connecting sentences and paragraphs), macroprocessing (the main idea), elaboration (making more of a text), and metacognition (the ability to know that your thinking has gone awry and how to fix it). 
     This week I got an opportunity to put her ideas into practice.  I have a student, I'll call him Russ, who has not made any progress this year in reading comprehension.  His IRIs reveal he can decode and is fluent using on-grade-level materials.  I have had him in several skill-specific groups this year, but none has made any difference in his reading comprehension.  During Daily Five he frequently abandons books.  He doesn't like to read and has no favorite series, authors, or types of books.  Even books like Calvin and Hobbes and The Guinness Book of World Records fail to interest him.  These behaviors show he is not able to comprehend enough to keep interested in books.
     I decided I needed to assess Russ in more depth to discover what was standing in the way of him making progress.  I used Irwin's books (Teaching Reading Comprehension Processes and Promoting Active Reading Comprehension Strategies) to create an assessment checklist with one generic question that I could use for any book for each of the sub-skills she lists under each process.  Then I found an on-grade-level leveled passage for Russ to read.  This week I had him read and answer the question with me orally.  As I expected, Russ lacked sub-skills in many different comprehension processes.  However, the area where he couldn't answer any questions at all was macroprocessing.  He did not have any sub-skills in this area.  So this week I have instructed him individually in finding the main idea.  We started with identifying the topic sentence in paragraphs. 
     The assessment is definitely a work in progress.  It has made a difference in this student's education and I hope, with some work, it will make a difference in the lives of others.

One Thing Leads to Another

As this calendar year ends, I think back on all the growth I have done as an educator.  In years past, my professional development was text-based.  I would read a great book, and then find other books by that same author or mentioned by that author and read some more.  This year, however, more opportunities for growth came from internet networking.  Connecting with like-minded people through Proteacher, Yahoo groups, blogs and Pinterest has led me to more like-minded people at Teachers Pay Teachers, Teacher's Notebook, and You Tube.  My skills have increased exponentially due to the interactive nature of the internet.
So, as the new year dawns, I am taking some time to record how one idea has lead to another over the past five years.
Starting in 2008, Daily 5 led to The CAFE Book, (and many other books about conferring and the reading workshop approach) which led to the Yahoo Group of the same name.  Leading that group was scrapbunny, who introduced me to Whole Brain Teaching.  www.thedailycafe.com led me to the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project which led me to the work of Lucy Culkins in the Writing Workshop.

Back to School: First Week (and a FREEBIE)

 Front board:  Whole Brain Teaching Rules up top, class theme (Olympics) on right side, homework board on left.  On the marker tray:  new books for the classroom library.

It's the end of our first week back to school.  Well, it's a full week for me, two days for the kids.  This is the second year of my loop from fourth to fifth.  The kids entered the room with an enthusiasm you rarely see on the first day.  There were lots of hugs and high fives.  Because many of the students kept in touch during the summer through Edmodo (a closed, socio-educational network), friendships picked up right where they left off.  It felt more like coming back from Christmas vacation, rather than coming back from summer vacation.  Even those students who did not go on Edmodo during the summer made connections with each other.  Two of my students found out that they lived just down the street from each other.  They played together several times a week during the summer.  I nearly cried when I heard this, because these two boys are perfect for each other!  Where one is strong academically, the other is weak.  Where one is weak socially, the other is strong.  How wonderful that these two boys got together and formed a bond!

My nook:  Common Core standards bulletin board (from Teachers Pay Teachers), the green desk organizer my husband made for me, and the fiction series part of the classroom library.

The great thing about looping with a class is, the second year, classroom routines are effortless.  I didn't have to tell anyone how to move their counter on the attendance/lunch count board.  I didn't have to explain the attention signal.  They even remembered our Whole Brain Teaching rules and actions!  This made activities just speed by.  I'm glad I only had two days with the kids because I found myself with time on my hands that I did not expect.  Next week I need to plan more activities.  The time that I would normally spend this time of year teaching routines can now be spent actually doing curriculum.
The flip side is that, since social bonds are so strong, that students tend to be more chatty.  Although they know the rules, they can have a hard time following them.  I found, during Morning Meeting, I had to spend nearly as much time as I did last year reviewing what the Greeting looks like, sounds like, and feels like.  I had to do the same with Read to Self (Daily 5).

This week's FREEBIE:  Partner Share Cards

One goal I have this year is to harness my students' strong social connections to enhance their academics.  One way to do this is through daily partner shares.  In DPS students share something about the book they are reading during Read to Self.  I made up two types of cards:  HOW to Share and WHAT to Share. Each goes in a different container.  At the end of Daily 5, I pull one card from each container for a quick, 5 minute share time.  I'm hoping to have a bit longer share time on Fridays where kids can share their favorite books with the whole class.  Already having one year of Daily 5 under our belts, this class is a group of voracious readers.  Even though I have added 40 new books to my classroom library already, my students still need to hear recommendations.

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DIY Magnetic Words Activity for Word Work

Magnetic Words make a great Word Work activity for intermediate students.  Some of the things they can do are:

• create poetry
• put words in alphabetical order
• practice Spelling rules, like changing the y to i and then add er or est
• change words into adverbs using -ly
• changing words from singular to plural
• sort words by parts of speech

This simple magnetic activity in inexpensive to make and is just the right size to sit on a child's lap anywhere in the room.  The sides on the pan minimize losing pieces.  You will need:

• a cheap metal pan (I used a $2 "brownie pan" from Wal-mart)
• GLAD Mini-Round containers (8 in a package)
• magnetic words (I bought two different-colored sets that were less than $1 each)
• duct tape (you can get creative here but I just used gray)
• scissors
• hot glue and glue gun (optional)
• Sharpie marker (optional)

     Either glue or tape the container in the corner of the pan.  Pull a strip of duct tape off the roll but don't cut it off yet.  While it's attached to the roll, cut it lengthwise down the middle.  Then cut it off the roll (way easier).  Take your cut piece and wrap it around 1/2 the container.  Place the container in the corner of the pan, taping it in place.

Separate your magnetic words and put them in the container.  I hot glued the last two rows (alphabet and numbers) to the top of the pan for decoration.  If you are a primary grade teacher adapting this activity, you will probably want to keep those letters and numbers in the container.  You may want to label the activity "Magnetic Words" with the Sharpie on the side of the pan so kids can see it when it is on a shelf.  You can also draw columns for word sorts with titles above.  I choose to leave my blank so students can use them for any purpose they want.
In this picture, I wanted to show how to store two activities.  Since nothing should fall out, they can be stored one on top of the other (the top one upside down), like shown.

If you want student directions for the activities that fit into the container click here.  Just copy, laminate, and roll to fit in the container.  
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Students with Poor Comprehension

Helping Students Who Lack Comprehension During Individual Conferring

It has happened to every intermediate grade teacher.  That dreaded moment when you sit down with one of your little friends... and it's obvious that he/she is not comprehending.  Your heart just sinks.  It is certainly a difficult moment and your response can either turn this student around or lead to years of problems.  But at that moment, all you feel like is a deer in the headlights.  There are so many things you could do, but which is right?
1.  Be honest... and proactive.  Say, "It looks like you are missing a lot of the important information in this book. Let's see if we can figure out what the problem is.  Are you willing to help me out or should be put aside this book for a later time?"  I know this sounds heartless, but we just can't have kids continue to read a book they are not comprehending- no matter how popular it is, no matter how much they want to read it.  The child needs to know that, if you can't figure out what the problem is and fix it together, reading this book is just not an option right now.
2.  Check the books reading level against the child's.  If the level is too high for the child, be brave and tell them they can't read it...YET.  Go over to the bin that had the book and help them find a lower level alternative.  This is why it is best to arrange your classroom library thematically, rather than by level.  I put the child's independent level on the top of my conferring page so I always know it.
3.  If the level is right, do a 1 minute fluency check.  Have the child start at the top of the page and read for one minute.  While they are reading, listen for their prosody (expression and use of punctuation).  After they are done, count the words.  I keep a piece of paper in my pensieve with all of the wpm goals for different reading levels.  If they read too slowly or with lack of prosody, go back to step 2.
4.  If the level and fluency are OK, back up and reread.  Find the part of the book where the child had good comprehension.  Mark it with a stickee.  Have the child read from there.  Make sure they commit to reading differently the second time, otherwise they will get the same result.  This means they have to verbalize a strategy.  Model if they need encouragement and write it on the stickee.  Here's the important part:  Check back with them at the end of the time period to see if comprehension has improved AND...
5.  Have the child put a second stickee when they finished and hand it to you.  Congratulations, teacher!  You now have homework.  Your homework is to figure out why this child is loosing comprehension.  Read the story (preferably from the beginning) with a critical eye and see if you can come up with one strategy the child can do to improve their comprehension.  At this point, the strategy will probably need to involve writing something down since just thinking wasn't enough. With one child, I found that the book had six completely different main characters.  I had to write them down, along with a little blurb, to remember them all!  I suggested she do the same. Once she did, she came to the conclusion on her own that the book was too hard.  Another little friend of mine was having a hard time with a historical fiction book set at the time of the Revolutionary War.  I realized he needed a better understanding of this time period to understand the events of the book.  I suggested he take a break from the book and read "If You Lived During the Revolutionary War". He did and, when he went back to the book, he found his comprehension much improved.
6.  Whether you are able to come up with some specific strategy or not, plan on meeting briefly every day with this child until their issues are resolved with this book or they choose a better book.  How do you manage this brief, but intense, support?  Have your regular reading group go to your group spot and read their choice book while they wait for you.  Do a brief check in with your targetted child.  Find out what page they are on and have them summarize the book so far.  Also have them commit to a strategy.  If all seems well, send them off to read.  Run your small group.  Check in with your targetted child once more, either during their reading or at the end of the reading time. Doing this will force them to become a more active reader because you are raising the level of accountability.  With most children, I find three days in a row is enough.  After that, gradually reduce the level of your support.
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Read to Someone

My Love-Hate Relationship With Read to Someone (And a Freebie)

     True confession time.  As much as I love Daily Five, I dread the day I introduce Read to Someone.  A big part of it is the age of the children I teach.  Younger children may love to read together and I'm sure it really works.  Older students are much more social.  They are starting to test the absolute authority of teachers and their friends become much more important.  Put two upper elementary students together and I guarantee they will be talking about things other than reading.  
     They are also hyper-aware of reading levels, no matter how well you disguise it.  Poor readers are embarrassed by their books.  They don't want to be seen with "baby books".  Intermediate level books are also longer, so the idea of "I read- you read" doesn't work because it does serious damage to comprehension.
     So how do I overcome my natural aversion to Read to Someone?  Here are a few tips and tricks I have learned.  I hope they will be helpful if you teach fourth grade and up and want to use The Daily Five. 
1.  Save RTS for last.  I save it for when the kids start to get a bit antsy with the typical choices, like around holiday time.  That makes it all the more special.  Because I make a big deal about it, I also tell them that it is a privilege.  If they can't do it well, they will lose it.  
     I tell my students (and it's the truth) that I check in and confer with partners much more often than "singles", so they better be on their "A" game! When I confer with partners I usually act like a coach for one or more of them, telling them what to say to their partner.  I will write those down on stickees for them to refer to later.
2.  Take a lot more time to model RTS.  Intermediate teachers are lucky in that we probably don't have to spend much time on the foundational skills that primary  grade teachers have to teach, such as "good fit" books, and the three different ways to read a book.  Even with Read to Self, intermediates develop stamina much more quickly.  So use that gift of extra time and spend it on Read to Someone.
     What you will need to model is the conversation part.  This is where sentence starters come in.  Copy them on a sheet or post them on the wall.  A "fishbowl" is a good way to model this.  This is where two kids do the modeling and you provide the "color" commentary.

3.  At first, assign reading material and a specific task.   Assignments can be from the basal, a chapter from your read aloud book, a webpage, or Time for Kids.  Shorter is usually better.  Tasks can be marking or writing on stickees or filling in a traditional worksheet.  Make sure students know what to do when they are done.  What? Assignments?  Isn't this what we are trying to get away from?  Yes, but assignments help you determine how successful your partnerships are.  Be consist with the rule that if they are not learning, you will separate them with a silent signal.  Remember the privilege part?  No learning- no privilege!  Try it again later in the year.
4.  Rename Read to Someone "Read with a Coach".  I know it's just semantics, but kids take their job much more seriously when you tell them they are a "coach" rather than just "someone".  Since most kids have had a sports coach in their lives, have them brainstorm what a coach does and how they do it. I have designed some Coaching Cards for this purpose.  Click the link for the freebie!
5.  Partners need to commit to reading the same book...and each have their own copy.  As I previously stated, "I read-you read" with two different books does not work with chapter books, which are too small to share.  Each child needs his/her own book and needs to be following along.  What happens if, a ways into the book, one person doesn't want to keep it up any more?  They are welcomed to separate.  The person who wants to keep reading can continue with that book or pick another.
6.  Variety is the spice of life.  Read to Self is really the best for intermediates.  That's what they should be doing the most of.  If you find a student is always picking Read with a Coach, try to determine why.  If a certain book is really popular, involve others and form a book club that meets a few days a week.  Bring in Listening to Reading, if you haven't already, for low level students to "save face" and read a more challenging and intersting book.
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This school year isn't over, but I'm already thinking of next year.  In looking at the individual reading inventories of my students, I know that comprehension will be the main focus of my instruction.  Because of that, I want to revise The CAFE Menu that I have been using as my instructional "road map".  For those of you that aren't familiar with CAFE, it is the instructional plan of Gail Boushey and Joan Moser (known as "The Sisters") outlined in their book:  The CAFE Book. CAFE is an acronym to help students categorize and remember strategies for:  Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary.
I have already revised their CAFE Menu once before to pare down the accuracy and fluency strategies for my intermediate students.  Now I want to entire menu to be comprehension for my looping class of fifth graders.  My new CAFE acronym is:
Critical and Creative Thinking:  I am an active, engaged reader.
Author's Purpose:  I know the message the author is sending.
Facts/Details:  I remember the facts/details the author tells me.
Expand Vocabulary:  I can use interesting words the author uses.

https://sites.google.com/a/sau61.org/mrsjones/Advanced%20CAFE%20Menu.docx?attredirects=0&d=1