RPI Day 4: Guided Reading

In today's session we have taken a deep dive into guided reading and some of the key components and elements of guided reading, the learners role and the teacher role. I really enjoyed this session as it added a lot more tools that I am excited to add into my guided reading program. 

Background to guided reading

During this part of the session we were given background information into guided reading
and how it has evolved to what we see in classrooms today. I learnt a lot in this part of the session on how to use screen cast for writing as well as reading. Also thinking about an anchor text for our guided reading. This has made me think about having a background text as the starting point for the week which allows the students to explore and understand the topic in more detail before we start deep diving into the other text of the week. I have also thought of using this as a way to add more non fiction texts into my sessions as this is something that is lacking looking at my text coverage so far for this year. I have also had discussions this week on how to extend my readers and I think this will be a perfect way to add this into guided reading. 

Introducing Text and Purposes
Discussing key vocabulary before reading sessions can be really valuable in allowing

students to understand new words that they might come across. This is something that I always forget to think about during my planning time and is something that I will make sure to add into my planning from now. I also need to work on making the vocabulary visible. It was really helpful to see some ways this can be done in guided reading sessions and I have a lot of takeaways from this especially having these words written on cue cards to discuss as a group. The image of the bridge of how we are scaffolding our learners really resonated with me and I think it is really important to keep remembering this as we are planning for guided reading. 

Observing

For this part of our session we were looking at how valuable observations of reading can be in the classroom. It has given me some new ways in order to see and hear my students reading more often while they are in front of me so that I know they are still reading. We looked at some ways in which we can take anecdotal notes and it was also a great chance to reflect on how this looks in the classroom. 

Fluency

I really enjoyed this part of the day as we had the opportunity to deep dive into our

students who had recorded themselves reading as part of their follow up activity. It was a really good chance to see how the students are reading when they are away from us and looking at the fluency scale. I am really excited to take this back to the classroom and have the students analyse their own reading and reflect on how they were reading and what they can improve on. I think it will be great to set up conferences where we can compare what we are seeing and work on how we can improve fluency in reading. 

Discussion and teaching points after reading

Another thing that I want to work on between now and our next session is to use my digital modelling book better. I have created one for each group but I often find it just sits there. I think this will be a really great place to keep a record of the discussions that we are having as a group as well as a place where we can keep vocabulary visible during and after our guided reading sessions. This part of today has made me think about how I can change up my task boards, so watch this space! I have some exciting ideas and things that I want to try in the next few weeks. 

Skill builder and independent practice

This week for our skill builder we were given some incredible resources that I cannot wait to add to my resource bank going forward. As I have also mentioned it has given some great other ideas on how to add vocabulary into my follow up tasks and reenganing some create ideas as well. 

I really enjoyed today's session and I got a lot out of it, with some great reminders of what I can add to strengthen my guided reading program. I am very excited to get onto my planning for next week and implement some of these ideas. As always I have a few extra readings that I would like to look at in more detail to strengthen my understanding.