Guided Reading Goods!

A few weeks ago I shared my set up for guided math.   This time I am sharing how we roll through our reading block.  Again, this is not earth shattering info, but just what we do this year in our happy little classroom!

Please excuse the yellowed gritty photos…I have a camera on my Christmas list.  😉
First off I do rotate my students.  I have allowed for choices in year’s past and it worked great, but with this group, this particular year,  I have found that boundaries work best.  Below on the picture you can see our rotations.  We complete five 15 minute rounds a day.  I project this rotation system and students move through LEARN to read.  To see more about that click the picture below.

 
I use quiet phones for students when they are doing a familiar read or when I am taking a running record on just one student while the entire group is there.  Quiet phones are just broken headphones that block out extra noise.  They really help focus those students that like to stop and listen the person next to them! 

Another little helpful motivator is fun seasonal pointers for students to use.  I found these little things at the dollar store during Thanksgiving break and it took less than 5 minutes to create our little bucket of pointers for the month.  These snowflake sticks already come ready to point in a little pack of five!

The dollar store also had colored Popsicle sticks and holiday stickers.  I made pointers without even needing hot glue.

Next, I will share my unhealthy obsession with seasonal erasers.  They make such great manipulatives in math, but here are some reading ideas…

During a picture walk, you can have students find difficult words by saying, I see a basket in the picture!  Can you place the reindeer under the word basket when you find it?  Then of course how did you know that word was basket?  What clues did you find?

Find a word in the at word family and place a snowflake above that word.  Find a word that has the long A sound and place a snowman under that word… 

I love using them for positional words, but I also love to cover words and then have students use clues in their reading to figure them out.

Another thing I have always done is pull out sound cards that students read through as daily review  It has made big difference for my students because it helps them retrieve the sound quickly and automatically when they are decoding text.  I can also pull the card they need to chunk a word. Here’s a video of my super adorable nephew {kindergartener} reading through the letter sounds book.  It’s the first of the 6 books. 

I don’t have a picture of my old cards, but they were on colored paper and then on rings to keep them separated by digraphs, word endings, blends, etc.  Now I created little books to keep for students to review!  I also have a set on rings so I can unhook certain sounds and play little games at the table.  For example, when we do the “h brothers” I can pull those specific cards and focus on them before adding them to our learned sounds.
Posting these cards in the writing area or as anchor charts helps for students to refer to when spelling or writing. 

My nephew did the letter sounds A-Z… you can see the other sound spellings included below. click the picture to see even more.  Flipping For Phonics

Now I will go through my student’s Reader’s Workshop Choices.
Word Work:
My students choose an activity from our drawers to complete. Each activity helps them practice the sound spelling of the week.  

  This way I know no matter what they choose, they are getting the practice they need! The following pictures were taken different weeks.  I always have only one sound spelling per week that we focus on.

 Fast finishers can go to the literacy tubs.  These tubs hold favorites like Sight Word Sticks and Seasonal Literacy Activities.

If you like the word work drawer activities,  you can each pattern week by week or the entire year’s worth of spelling patterns in one bundle.

For weekly spelling test lists plus a grid of the order of how we teach the patterns, check out my spelling for the year pack.

Writing Center:
This station is slow to start, but now my students are rocking it out!  I keep this seasonal and change it out weekly to keep interest high.  I have pocket charts for helpful words and I post some sort of focus to help students gather ideas for writing.  This picture is from last week.  I have a little collection of books and some different writing paper each week.  What I find most popular is that students like to keep all their writing in their literacy journals.  They keep these in their book boxes.  Once in awhile I go through and add some stickers and feedback in their writing journals.  It keeps them pumped!!!  They love when I surprise them with some stickers and smileys. 

Apptivity:
My students get to use the ipods for one rotation.  The apps are mostly free in the education section.  I don’t have a TON of apps to share, but we love CIMO spelling, free sight word flash card apps, and Teach Me First Grade.  I have some students that have almost completed the entire first grade teach me so I told them I will buy them the second grade version when they are ready. #whateverittakes

Reading Comprehension:

Read To Self–Read to Someone
 Students can move things and stretch out any way they like.  They can shop for books during this round too.  They have book boxes with a writing notebook and 5 books.  Sometimes I give them the books I want them to read and other times they choose from our classroom library.  They also keep their take home bag in their book box so it is ready to go anytime I call them to my reading table. 

 This is where I keep their book boxes.  This was obviously before we began using our book boxes because they are empty!

 I hope you found something you can use in your guided reading block!!!