journal 62 got me to thinking...

Today was the first day my little buddy was gone for his specialized services.  That left me all alone all morning.  Not!  I first worked with my above group and taught them about rising action, climax and falling action.  I was thinking about this today and thinking that with the highest kids we don't need to do a guided reading lesson persay, but we should still do some sort of teaching with them even if it's not as often as with the lowest kids.  So even though that's a really advanced concept they seemed to understand it and were able to see that the action in their book was starting to be rising action leading to the climax.  Then I pulled my approaching group.  I am working on reading The Magic Finger with them and they are loving it!  I think now that my group time will be dedicated to pulling groups they will benefit a lot more.  All of this got me to thinking...

A new initiative is Response to Intervention.  Well, it's not really all that new to my school we had a school base problem solving grant before it became RTI and it all kind of fused together.  What amazes me is that of the students that I have that are on the RTI list, majority of them have been on the list for years and nothing has been done despite them not improving with interventions.  So it's been my job this year to get them staffed so they can have the services that they need.  I don't know if it's a trend in other districts but I sure feel like people wait until third grade-the testing year-to really push the kids forward.  Anyways now that my lowest student is seeing the special ed teacher and my time is more open I got to work with my middle kids.  It got me to thinking that they could have been pushed so much higher than I have been able to (and believe me I've worked really hard even though my time has been limited with them).  If we really used the tier system the way we are supposed to, then am I wrong in thinking that by third grade we should really only be working with the middle kids all the time?  It just seems so late to be catching them in third grade and then no wonder we don't make AYP in all of our subsets.  How can we improve this???

Another thing that got me to thinking today was the fact that I had three thumbs middle at the meeting.  I had the kids set a goal today again like we did last week and then at the meeting I had them share if they had made their goal or not.  The three kids that had thumbs middle said "I was too busy talking to ___ and didn't really work on getting to my goal.  I got half way there but if I had worked the whole time I would have gotten it."  "I didn't really have a goal because I wasn't sure which book I'd read so I felt like I didn't have anything to work for."  "I wasn't able to finish my goal."  It got me to thinking that they are being reflective and to think of how powerful goal setting can be.  One of my questions before I started to focus on the Daily 5 was goal setting.  I'm starting to realize it's a powerful thing. 

journal 61 setting goals

I've noticed that in my meetings at the end of the Dailies that my students always say something they're going to work on the next time but then we never really go back to that because we move directly into Math time.  I had also noticed that a few students looked as though they would start in their Daily on task and doing it well and then about 25 minutes into it they would become unfocused.  I thought about what I could do to maybe improve this and I thought that before going into the Daily of the day we could think about a goal for the Daily they are going to that day.  Then at our meeting we would talk about if they met that goal or not.  Wow has this worked wonders!  They were so focused today!  I did keep an eye on the little guy that was off task yesterday and he seemed off task today too so I'm going to have to have a conference with him.  Other than him, they really worked hard to complete their goals.  Some of the goals included:
"I want to read 2 chapters."
"I want to listen to an entire book in listening to reading."
"I want to write a whole page to you in work on writing about reading."
"I want to read a whole book with my partner." 
"I want to stay in the same spot the entire time and not think about anything but reading."

They did work to complete these goals I could see them.  I had one little guy even come up to me and he looked so excited that even though I was working with another student I let him talk to me.  He said "I met my goal and even more!  I wanted to read 4 chapters and I read 6 and finished a book!"  He was beaming from ear to ear.  It was a great sight.  I think the goals helped with making them more independent.  I wonder if I did this with them earlier in the year if it would have had the same effect?  I wonder...

Also today I brought in the Level S books for my highest kids.  Wow they were so excited.  One kid even thanked me for bringing him harder books!  I did have to warn them about some of the content.  I explained that not all authors think a third grader can read a fourth or fifth grade level book so sometimes things are a little bit more mature!  They seemed to understand what I was saying and were excited!  Yay!

journal 60 20 minute study

In the last couple of weeks I've done a few 20 minute studies on my class.  I've just sat and jotted down what they were all doing.  Today I did it a bit differently, I picked 8 students to watch-all of whom were at different dailies-and jotted down what they were doing.  It was really interesting to see who was on task and who was not.  Of the kids that I was observing 1 of them was never on task the entire time.  Mind you, I didn't go over to him and redirect him, per the Daily 5 guidelines!  It took every bit of my being to not go speak with him but I didn't.  What I was happy to see is that of the 8 that I watched it was only 1 of them that was off task.  One other guy was off task for the first time I looked at him but that was right after we moved into our dailies and he has some underlying issues that make him take a bit longer to transition into things.  Once he got settled, he was deep into his daily.  One of my students that I observed was one of my most reluctant readers.  She sat the entire time with a nose in her book.  She has grown a lot this year and while I would love to say it's all because of the small group work I've done with her I also think it has a lot to do with the extended time with a nose in a book.  Prior to using the Daily 5 they would only have their nose in a book for the 25 minutes of SSR daily.  Now they are reading up to 45 minutes uninterrupted reading.  That's a whole 20 minutes more!!  Unbelieveable.  It makes me think that the research really is correct.  More time spent reading really does increase student achievement.

journal 59 book choice

Something that I've really been working on is writting my students back when they work on writing about reading. I've figured out a great system that allows me to write them back on a daily basis. They love to hear back from me...or so they say. I've been really interested in what they write about especially looking at what books they choose. Now that we have the MOY data from DIBELS and TRC I've begun telling my students a different just right choice for their book bags.  Something that I noticed when reading their response journals is that they aren't taking my suggestions and getting the harder books.  It's a struggle to get third graders to want to read long long books even if they are at their instructional level.  Just like the most struggling kids don't want to pick picture books, the most gifted students don't want to pick the harder books in fear of being different from their peers.  I especialy see this with one of my little girls and when I asked her why she was so reluctant she said, "my friends don't read those books so I don't really want to."  Which got me to thinking-as adults we are social about our reading with books clubs and book talks and blogs about books.  Yet, we as teachers are so focused on giving students just right books for them that may take them away from the their friends which takes away the ability to be social about their reading.  Part of why adults love reading is because of the social aspect.  At least I know that's the case for me.  So when choosing the read to self books for my students even though there is a read to someone book that can be at any level do I still stick with their instructional level even if this means they can't chat later in the day or gasp at home about their reading?

journal 58 what will I do???

I have got to give some credit to the Daily 5 for allowing me the time and energy to work with my nonreader.  He came to me in September not knowing all his letters and barely knowing any of his sounds.  I've had the opportunity to work with him and see the light turn on.  He now knows his letters and his sounds and is starting to master some consonant blends with the help of kindergarten making words.  Every Monday during the daily time, my time has been dedicated to working one on one with him on his blend of the week and watching him identify the real/aileen words.  I realized today while working with him that this will probably be our last Monday working together.  He will now be receiving specialized services as he hasn't made many improvements since the beginning of the year.  But like I said, I have to give credit to the Daily 5 because I don't think that if I had continued to  use the basal and whole group instruction that he would have made any improvements.  He has made improvements but they are very small.  He now knows his letters and sounds on most days but some days he forgets.  I love that this program has given me the time dedicated to working with him and I love that I am confident when I say there's indeed something not right.  But now I wonder what will I do on Mondays???  I know-work with the other 27 kiddos!  :) 

journal 57 longer school day

The district that I work in is moving towards having a longer school day.  While I think this is great because yes we need it, I looked at the proposed schedule for my grade level and became worried.  Included in Literacy now is writing and reading.  In the past 5 years we've had one block for Reading and then another period for teaching Writing.  Now, the 120 minutes are alloted to Literacy which includes both.  45 minutes for Writing and 55 minutes for reading.  Right now I have 80 minutes for Reading each day and 40 minutes 3 times a week for writing.  What makes me nervous is that Reading time.  My daily time is going to be cut short.  Not to mention my read aloud which I think is so many kids favorite parts of the day.  I really am going to have to get creative.

journal 56 juggling

Today the idea of juggling got to me.  I am working with 4 groups and one individual and I'm having a hard time juggling all of it and remembering what I'm doing with each of them.  Just not feeling it today.