New Beginnings

Today was a big day in Room 29. 

We began our reading groups and our new reading rotation.  In most classrooms I've worked in, students rotate to literacy stations in their reading groups.  The trouble is, most of their reading groups have been with "instructional level peers," AKA leveled reading groups.  Even though the "Blue Triangles" and "Orange Circles" have ambiguous names, the kids in those groups know who is "higher" or "better" and who is "lower" or "less smart." Most educators would argue that this is the way it has to be because student's need to work on strategies with their peers who are working on the same kinds of strategies, comprehension, etc.  While I certainly agree with this sentiment, I also feel like all of the kids in the class should have a chance to work with one another at some point.  Just because you're an incredible reader and I struggle with it doesn't mean that we can't bond over listening to "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" with our cute headphones on.  Am I right?

What I enjoy about this team is that while our reading groups are based on instructional level, we have spent A LOT of time planning out rotations that break these reading groups.  We've worked it out so that any child in the room has an equal chance of doing Word Work, Buddy Reading, Listening to Reading, Reading to Self, or Literacy Games (on Fridays).  I was nervous about how today would go because the kids have been accustomed to rotating to just four areas- Read to Self, Buddy Read, Respond, or Listen to Reading.  Not only were we throwing at them a personalized itinerary for the reading hour, we also introduced Word Work, formerly known as spelling.   The stellar part about this Word Work, though, is that the students get to pick their six words for the week.  We give them a list of words that possess a certain quality (this week it was long and short vowels) and they get to choose which words are best for them.  We modeled how to choose things that weren't too easy or too hard.  It seems like a pretty slick system- but then again, it's only day one.  I'm curious to see how things work out in the long run.

I also lead my first two book groups of the year!  I can honestly say that leading book group and teaching writing are my two favorite parts of being a teacher (besides hearing cute stories and getting hugs all day long).  I absolutely love to read, infer, predict, compare and contrast, and synthesize information.  It's hard to know where you should start with a book group or where your goals should be.  I have the information from their fall PLAA assessment which lets me know whether they need to work on monitoring, decoding, comprehension, etc.  which helps.  It's also nice because we, as a team, decided to start with non-fiction across the board.  So, not only am I teaching non-fiction to the whole group in writing, I'm also getting to work on non-fiction strategies in reading.  I've realized that I'm a huge literacy nerd.  Too bad we can't just read and write all day long... :)

Actually going to work on my TPA tonight- planning on teaching the first "real" lesson on it tomorrow.  I can't wait to get it done and just focus on my teaching.

So much love,
Ms. T