Crissy Harris-March/April Blog: Ch. 10

As cheesy as it sounds, this has been the year of change for my reading instruction.  I have overhauled my planning and my ideas on how to teach reading.  Although I have never used the basal entirely, I have used parts of it and a very similar style for teaching reading.  Often the first day of reading instruction began with vocabulary and round-robin reading in the classroom.  From there we would work with the same story all week doing various language and comprehension strategies.  This was very boring for my high learners, but beneficial for my low learners.  This year I have moved to using the guided reading approach.  While it requires a LOT more planing on my part, the students have seemed to enjoy reading much better.  At the beginning it was a struggle for the students because they were being asked to delve deeper into the texts and provide proof for their answers.  They had a hard time adjusting and really missed the multiple choice reading tests that they were more accustomed to.  However, now after doing reading centers all year, they are very used to the idea and move through the centers easily.  When I teach using reading centers I always try to have an independent reading center, a technology center, a writing center, and a center with me.  I do worry that I am not able to monitor the other centers while I am working with my group and this has been one thing I have worked on all year.  I have switched between working with a group for the entire reading period and not having a group and rotating through the centers.  Management is the most difficult aspect of using guided reading.  Having a student teacher has been very eye opening to what can be accomplished by having two people in the classroom.  One person is rotating around while one person is working with a group. This works so well, although I know I am not getting an assistant soon. :)  One thing that the book points out is having students evaluate how well they managed their time while in groups.  I like the idea of creating a rubric to give students so they can evaluate whether they were on task.  However; I haven't had the opportunity to create this yet.

The book makes an interesting point about how to group students.  They discuss using ability grouping or flexible grouping.  This year I have used flexible grouping mainly because it helps with management.  When students get stuck, they are able to ask a classmate in their group for help.  It allows the higher students to be the "teacher" while I am working with a group.  This minimizes the distractions while I am at the table and it also keeps students on task for the most part.  As I continue using guided reading, hopefully the planning aspect becomes easier.  It has definitely been eye-opening for me and although I do sometimes start to miss the basal and its readily available material, I realize that I am doing what is best for my students.  I do feel as though they have developed more a love for reading than in the years past.