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Using Literacy Centers With Guided Reading

http://www.msrossbec.com/literacy_index.html   This site gives a lot of helpful ideas to use for literacy centers and guided reading strategies. The goal of guided reading is to help children learn how to use independent reading strategies successfully.  Several basic strategies are provided -Look at the picture. The word is something that can be seen in the picture. Or look for chunks in the word. Or get your mouth ready to say the word by shaping the mouth with the beginning letter. Others are, ask the child to read to the end of the sentence to see if they can then figure out the unknown word. Or ask questions about a word that is read incorrectly. Two documents are provided to help parents, teachers and students in implementing guided reading strategies while reading.  

  Literacy Stations are addressed. 22 lesson plans are provided for literacy centers. Also questions are answered about managing literacy centers. Like where to begin? How long should they be? What system of management should be used? How many guided reading groups should there be? And how often should you meet with your guided reading group? What sort of books do you use with your guided reading groups?. Several literacy station links are also provided.

Teaching is a Work of Heart

The Teacher’s Room

Mrs. Perdue’s Kindergarten

Mrs. Pohlmeyer’s Kinder Page

  This article was helpful because It will help me manage and work with my guided reading groups better. It also gave a lot of good ideas to use for literacy centers.

Research-Based Practices in Early Reading Series. A Focus On Fluency by Michael F. Opitz                     

http://www.prel.org/products/re_/fluency-1.pdf This is a fairly lengthy article about ways to support struggling students to become fluent readers. Students who do  not develop reading fluency are likely to remain poor readers for the rest of their lives. Until recently most commercial reading programs did not include fluency instruction. Fluency can be described as being able to read quickly, accurately and with expression. Struggling readers often spend more time with word recognition than on comprehension. Fluency is a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Fluent readers can recognize words and comprehend at the same time. Most readers develop fluency over time with lots of practice. Fluent readers understand punctuation marks and text features. They can tell where to place emphasis when reading aloud. They do it easily and understand what they are reading. Teachers should model prosody while reading a passage aloud to the students. 

  To help students become fluent readers give them lots and lots of practice. One way to do this is by doing oral reading. Students should practice reading the same selection until they reach a predetermined level of fluency. Then move to another selection to practice reading aloud. Other ways to do this are teacher-student assisted reading, readers theatre, paired reading, tape assisted reading, computer assisted reading programs, and partner (or buddy) reading.

  All effective repeated reading procedures have 2 features in common 1) They provide students with many opportunities to practice reading. 2) They provide students with guidance in how fluent readers read. Struggling readers also need to have independent reading time. There is a strong relationship between reading ability and how much a student reads. Practice, practice, practice. Help students select appropriate books for their level. After silent reading give students time to discuss what they have read. 

  Fluency is an essential component of successful reading. Fluency is only 1 aspect of reading. students also need instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and comprehension to be successful readers.

  In my classroom I do give students opportunities to practice reading aloud. We do teacher -student assisted reading, paired reading, tape assisted reading and computer assisted reading as well as independent reading. Unfortunately it is not every day. I need to make more time in my schedule to give students lots and lots of practice reading. 

“Using poetry To Teach Reading” - http://teachersmentor.com/readingk3/using_poetry.html  Is an article that gives ideas for motivating children to read by using poetry. It is suggested to begin with a poetry pocket folder for each student. On the first day of class read a poem to the class. Pass out a copy of the poem to the students and reread the poem. Then read the poem together chorally. Follow this process again with a second poem. On day 2 read the poems again chorally. Then use the poems to do a word study activity. Some word searches may involve looking for rhyming words or synonyms. On day 3 introduce another poem. Follow the same procedure as before. Then reread the first poems. Students should be becoming more fluent reading the old poems.

  At this point you can assign a student to read a character part. The rest of the class reads the parts that should be considered narration. Continue to follow the procedure throughout the school year. 

  Poems should be chosen by beginning with a humorous poem that rhymes. The humor will help students be interested in the poem. Choose poems that relate to what you are learning. Find poems that have conversational parts and definite parts where children can be divided into groups. 

  In my classroom I would try this with Kindergarten students. We would have to have a lot of modeling the first couple of times that we attempt this. When we do word searches we might begin with beginning letters or rhyming words. Sight words could be added later as they are introduced.

“Creating a Classroom Library” - http://www.mandygregory.com/classroom_library1.htm . This article had lots of information about how to organize a classroom library. The author states that there is no right or wrong way to organize your library. She does give information about ways to get books. Some suggestions were Goodwill, Scholastic, garage sales, library book sales, EBay, book close outs and donations. Ideas are also given for how to sort books. They can be sorted by topics, genres, or levels. Keeping the books in baskets helps students check out more books because they can see the book covers. Where to put your library will be determined by the amount of space that you have and the number of book shelves that you have. Books should be labeled so that students can return them properly. When students help sort the books into groups for the baskets it helps them learn quickly where they go. The baskets have labels that correspond to the labels on each book. GREAT printable labels from Cherry Carl .

  I chose this article because I am interested in setting up a classroom library. I have a lot of books in my closet. I take groups of books out from time to time. I needed a way to make them more accessible to students. I did go to Goodwill this week and was thrilled to get a grocery cart of quality books at a great price. I will be referring to this article as I sort, label, and set up my classroom library.

“Literature Circle Resources Center” –  http://www.litcircles.org.   This is a wonderful guide for help in setting up a literature circle. It gives you information about how to use literature circles in elementary and middle school classrooms. It gives you an overview of the purpose of literature circles and how they fit into a literacy curriculum. Information is given about how to organize a literature circle, how to select books for a literature circle and ways to guide discussions. Helpful ideas to use to encourage written responses and extension ideas are also provided.

  I would use literature circles in my classroom as a way to give students who are not comfortable sharing in a large group a chance to express themselves about a book.  

Another helpful resource is  ”Literature Circles Build Excitement for Books“by Mary Daniels Brown

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr259.shtml

“The Importance of the Classroom Library” by Susan B. Neuman-  This was a great article about setting up a classroom. Each classroom library needs to have 300-600 books. Books need to include a wide variety of books that range in different levels of difficulty. They also need to include a range of genres, topics, language and perspectives. Books need to be physically attractive. Children need 20 minutes of uninterrupted time per day to read. Reluctant readers are more likely to select a book if teachers highlight a particular book daily. To foster a love of books children need opportunities to talk about them. Children learn to read by reading. 

  I will keep this article in mind as I create my classroom library. As I select books for the library I will be sure to select books that are attractive and have a variety of books from different genres, topics, and language perspectives.

I enjoyed all the fabulous ideas to use with poetry. I am excited about trying them in my classroom. I loved the dream flags.

The workshop today was fun.I am getting lots of good ideas to use in my classroom. The technology is a bit overwhelming already. Hopefully I can learn quickly and not be lost. D

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