journal 55 responsibility

What amazes me is the responsibility they've taken for their own reading.  We meet after the dailies for a quick check in and a lot of them have goals that they work on daily.  I saw some of them working on them today.  It's neat to actually see it in action and to see how much they've grown.  Even my nonreader (no longer!) has goals-he's working on rhyming.  :)

Journal 54 manic monday

Before the day started, I just wasn't feeling the teaching mode.  I wonder if I'm the only one that gets it.  We have team meetings on Mondays and I hate them.  It just turns into everyone complaining about things when I'd much rather be in my classroom planning or doing something to benefit my students.  While I've felt so much more happier about the quality of teaching I am doing this year, I have noticed that I am a bit distant from other teachers.  I began to think about why-is it because I'm really just there for the kids and I don't really want to waste time complaining?  Is it that I don't really want to deal with the other teachers?  Some of them I love, but a lot of the time we spend together is just complaining.  Or is it that I feel like I'm putting my heart and sole into everything in my classroom I just want to be there?  I feel like I've worked harder this year than any other year (aside from my first year) making sure that my teaching is top notch.  I know it's that I completely changed how and what I teach and I am determined to prove it to myself but I'm more there for the kids this year than I have ever been.

Not to sound corny but the funk is always gone when I see my students at my door.  There's no resenting anyone when they need me to be on.    Today's lesson continued from last week because I wasn't quite sure they were getting it and I didn't give them much chance to practice inferring meaning of unkown words using context clues.  They did great and actually were able to verbalize a lot of what I had taught them last week.  It's also helped a bunch to have the Scholastic News subscription to have a constant source of nonfiction at my finger tips.  They like that it's recent news and they can read most of it! 

We went into our dailies and I decided to forgo working with my above and meets group and just work one on one with my nonreader (well not really nonreader anymore :)).  Since he's pretty used to the routine I was able to do a 20 minute study of my class.  One kid was on task the entire time.  Another was on task for 18 minutes.  Another was on task for the entire time but did take time to walk to the Kleenex box.  One was on task for only about 14 minutes and spent a good amount of time looking around and the other was on task but distracted by the one that was walking around.  This really has transformed my class.  I really had a quite group sitting there really getting into text today.  Even my lowest students were into their daily.  It gives them the responsibility.  I also think it helps that at the checkin I always ask for something rockstar and they all want to share.  But if I notice they weren't doing the rockstar thing I will ask them about it.  So they want to be held responsible for what they are doing.  I love the independence!   I hope they do too.

journal 53 context clues

I started introducing using context clues to my students yesterday.  It's always been something I hate teaching because I didn't have the right text to teach it.  Well I used an article from Scholastic News about apes and it really helped.  This is a really hard thing to grasp and my kids that I knew were going to struggle did and the ones that got it really got it.  That's how it goes with any teaching I guess. 

During the Daily time today I worked with my highest group and realized that I need to push them even more.  I've only been giving them one set of questions per day but I think they can handle more.  I also need to get into the different levels of questioning.  I've been trying to come up with difficult questions but then I think they're third graders and not college students.  But then they don't seem challenged!  Such a delicate balance.  I also worked with my meets group and they are just so excited about the book.  My goal with this group is to keep working with them.  One kid said "I've never been pulled for a group this is fun!"  I later asked him if he just meant in third grade or all the time.  He told me never since I entered this school.  He's been at my school since preK.  Sad statement that is I guess.  He's one of those kids that's always in the middle.  He's not super high and not low by any means.  He's right in the middle.  It made me think that we really need to work with them too.    They have needs and yes they do notice that they don't get pulled.  So glad I have the time do that now.

journal 52 many differences

I got to thinking today about how proud I am of my class and how they've grown.  Then I got to thinking about how teaching reading has changed this year.  I'm doing things much differently:
1.  I'm fully implementing the Daily 5 and staying true to it.
2.  I'm working with small groups in Reading more than I ever have.
3.  I'm working with more students.  In the past I'd really only have time to squeeze in my lowest students and occasionally my highest students.  This year I'm making it a point to have time for all students.
4.  I'm teaching mini-lessons that are based on the reading strategies-making connections, questioning and now inferring.
5.  I'm reading a lot more nonfiction text in my mini-lessons.  In fact, all my mini-lessons since November have included a nonfiction text.  Having Scholastic news has helped a lot. 
6.  I'm sticking to a schedule of interventions and groups that I pull.  I tend to teach on a whim a lot but I'm not allowing this to be a whimsy thing. 
7.  I've been using questioning/QAR tons in my guided reading groups.  In fact that's the only strategy I've focused my entire year on.  Of course I touch on other things but my only lessons that I've planned have to do with QAR.  I know it's sort of test preppy but I am trying to teach it in a fun and understandable way. 
8.  I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I have faith in it.  Aside from my short lapse in November, I have a little more pep in my step.  I no longer dred teaching reading or am searching for more minutes in the day to work with the lowest kids.  I'm enjoying the art of teaching more. 

Ok I didn't think this list was going to be that long.  But now that I think about it, I've totally changed and so has my teaching.

journal 51 beating a dead horse??

I got to thinking today that we've been working on questioning a lot lately.  But then I got to thinking, if they haven't gotten it yet after all the work we've done maybe they just won't?  Today they were off since they had a sub yesterday because I was at a funeral and so they didn't have their dailies yesterday.  It was a lot of conferencing and checking in on kids today.  Next week we'll start back up strong!

journal 50 no matter what

Have you ever realized that no matter what goes on in your personal life or how sad you are about a loss you've had kids have a way of making you forget about it?  I think that's part of why I love teaching.  I was sad today because of a personal loss but the minute my students walk in while I don't forget about it, everything just seems a little easier.  I also think they have a way of knowing when something is up.  They were on today in the dailies.  They were on today all day.  Kids are great.

journal 49 results are in!

I always work myself up when my students are taking a test.  It's nerve racking!  I know that I'm not the only one that has had the students as their taecher so I'm not the only one responsible for their learning, but I take a lot of responsibility for how they do on assessments.  I have to.  Their scores for the tests are considered 'my scores.'  I really wish we'd change how we refer to scores.  Just like the kids, they are not 'his or her scores'  they are 'our scores.'  Anyways I really was looking forward to this test because it was going to give me some answers to how this change of teaching reading is going.  And the results are...

-On average my class grew 133.2 points each. 
-I had 4 kids go down but the rest went up by a considerable amount!  The kids that went down were my highest kids and only one of my other students. 
-What does this mean?  I need to work more with my highest students.  Such a challenge considering the huge gap of achievement between my highest and lowest students.  The other student has a lot going on at home so I wasn't surprised about his scores. 
-my kids that were in the middle at the beginning of the year and in November went up the most.  One kiddo even grew by 398 points!  That's HUGE!! 
-My biggest goal now is to work with those highest students and get them into higher level text.  I'm also going to keep working with my middle kids to keep them moving along. 

Overall I'm very happy.  There of course are things that I need to work on but for the most part I'm happy.  Next up is TRC which is text reading comprehension.  This is another big test and of course I am feeling some anxiety.  Hopefully the TRC and Scantron data will compare to each other and I won't have too many discrepencies.