Reading Observation

Today I got to observe a reading tumble in another class.  I stayed for the whole time in the room so I could see all the aspects of the reading. I picked up on several things that I liked and could improve in my own practice and I also saw a lot of things I've been doing - so I'm on the right track :)

The similarities between our programs include some of the pre-reading activties and some of the strategies the teacher used with the guided group. The two activities I saw were a matching activity (a picture of animals and what they eat) and a drawing activity (draw animals that jump) and I've been doing similar things. What was slightly different was the follow up.  The one group that did a follow up activity made some hats (their book was about hats).

I also saw some little things being done on the teaching table that I have been doing in my class. Often, the teacher would start the sentence they were reading and would stop when she got to a hard word.  She would ask a question about how she could figure it out, usually by looking at the pictures.  I've been doing this to a degree, but she added another level of support in there by going over each picture BEFORE reading the page.  This is something I don't do, and need to start doing. She also did some things that I wouldn't have even thought to do. For each group she had one or two words that she focused on (I've actually picked more, but I like this idea better). She made the word with magnetic letters and then wrote it down on a card.  She did a few activities around this and at the end she had them put the cards in their bookbags so they could practice at home.  Doing this is something I want to start immediately, which shouldn't be much of a problem seeing as I have all of the materials needed (and I'm trying to focus on words already).

Another thing I saw (and I've already increased my efforts to achieve this) is that the children were very independent in the class. They read their own tumbles and were able to sort themselves out easily and without much fuss.  I think I've been babying my students a bit much and I need to teach them how to sort themselves out on their own.  I already went over the tumbles with the children twice after this and helped them read it, so hopefully I can get them self sufficient quickly.  Some of this also has to do with the way she's organized her resources and I will need to get on top of that a bit more, as most of my activities do not yet have a home.

The actual tumble activities were similar so I feel that I'm on the right track there.  I saw a different site for games today (Literactive) and I'm going to look at that and add it to my list of games for kids to play. This can be made a bit easier by setting up some pages on my blog. Perhaps with pictures as links.

I got a lot of ideas today with this observation, but at the same time, it did show me the similarities between my reading program and hers.  As my yearly goal is this, I hope to be able to integrate several of these changes in the next week or two and more beyond that. I also look forward to getting a chance to see other classrooms and to take things from their guided reading programs to use in mine.