You know you've read a good book
when you turn the last page
and feel a little as if
you've lost a friend.
- Paul Sweeney
One of my goals as a teacher is to instill my love of reading in my students. I believe that students are much more engaged in reading when they get to choose what they read, so I love being able to give my students choices about their reading whenever possible. Using Guided Reading groups in our classroom, along with independent reading time, gives children the reading instruction that they need, while allowing them choice in the books that they read.
Mini Lesson
Every day we'll start Reading with a mini lesson. This is a 5-15 minute lesson where I explain and model a skill or strategy for the students. I then give them a chance to practice the skill or strategy while I guide them. Following the mini lesson, students will either meet with me in a Guided Reading Group, or will practice the skill/strategy we've just learned during Read to Self time.
Guided Reading Groups
During this time we'll meet in small groups to work on reading strategies and skills that are specific to the needs of that group of children. This allows me to meet your child where he or she is at. These groups are flexible and will change based on how your child is doing with each skill or strategy that we learn.
Read to Self
During 'Read to Self' time, students read self-selected books, and its one of my priorities to have 20- 30 minutes of Read to Self time daily. Early in the school year we'll talk about how we choose books, and when we should read easy, challenging, and just right books. We have about 1,000 books to choose from in our classroom library, and students are also welcome to bring books from home. The books students read during this time help them become better readers. Click here to see some statistics on the differences between kids who read for 20 minutes, 5 minutes, or 1 minute each day.
Later in the year, Read to Self time may be spent reading a book with a Literature Circle or doing some Partner Reading.
Work on Writing
During Work on Writing, students will work on their writing skills. Sometimes writing will be assigned, and other times students will write about ideas of their choice. We'll begin the year working on the six traits of writing (Voice, Organization, Ideas, Conventions, Excellent Word Choice, and Sentence Structure). Later we'll work on narrative, persuasive, and opinion writing, as well as research for writing. One of the things that kids love to do at this age is write their own stories and create their own comics.
Grammar
Three times a week we'll work on Grammar. We'll spend this time learning and practicing the parts of speech, capitalization, punctuation, and other conventions of writing.
Spelling
At MID we use Words Their Way to learn spelling, and its an excellent program. Three times a year I'll assess your student's overall spelling skills and will place them in a group with other students who are at the same level. This will determine the word list that they're studying. Each word list is based on a spelling rule or convention that will help students identify and learn spelling patterns. Students will be assigned a new word list every two weeks.
Vocabulary
Research has proven that one of the keys to academic success is expanding our students' vocabularies. We'll be using the Wordly Wise curriculum to learn new vocabulary, as well as our class read aloud, independent reading books, and subject based vocabulary words. Students will receive a new Wordly Wise list every two weeks, alternating with their spelling words.
Conferencing
Every week I'll meet with each student individually to conference about their reading and writing. During these conferences I'll be assessing and guiding student reading and writing by teaching strategies that individual students need to continue to grow as a reader and writer.
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