Reading

The Reading Spot
hedgehog book
Teaching reading is one of the things I enjoy the most in life. Not only do I love watching and assisting children into becoming literate but I also love researching and discovering ways children learn to read and how best to help them. The links below will lead you to literacy programs used in our classroom, tips and tools, as well as explaining some of the components that I believe are essential in a balanced literacy classroom.

Balanced Literacy	Book Buddies	Literacy centers
Parent Tips	Word Wall Words	How to help with reading at home
Spelling	Scott Foresman	English SOL's
Leveled Reading	Animated Literacy	Breakthrough To Literacy

Leveled Reading
reader reader

Leveled reading is matching books to readers. It is dependent on three critical things: knowing the reader, knowing the text, and understanding the reading process. First graders are building a network of understanding that makes up the reading process. Children can best develop successful processing strategies as they learn to read for meaning. A book is only easy or hard in relationship to the reader. Meeting children where they are developmentally requires that we assess their understandings of print and the strategies they are beginning to use to make sense of print.

I typically assess reading behaviors every six weeks. By using this information in flexible grouping I am able to meet the needs of the developmental varieties present in a first grade classroom.

books Characteristics of leveled reading books.

Word Wall Words
The attached file has our word wall words on it for the entire year.

Some ways to use this:

*Print it off and encourage your child to use it as
they complete their homework assignments.

*You may want to highlight the words that we have
covered so far.

*Make Flash cards and practice reading them in
isolation.

*With the same flash cards try to make sentences
with the words. (make picture cards for any
missing nouns)

Click here for Word Wall

Some of our Literacy Centers
writing center Library Center

Writing Center                                         Library time
Listening Center Guided Reading Groups
Listening Center                                        Group time

Smartboard !                                 Journal writing

Author Study
Author Study

Balanced Literacy reader

Guided Reading	Shared Reading	Independent Reading	Modeled Reading
Guided Writing	Shared Writing	Independent Writing	Modeled Writing
Buddy Reading	Word Study	Characteristics of leveled text

Guided Reading

Guided reading is an instructional reading approach that allows teachers to support a small group of students in learning, applying, and practicing effective reading strategies while they read from an appropriately leveled book.

Benefits:
Helps build a bridge between whole group shared reading and independent reading.

Allows matching students with texts that offer appropriate challenges yet ensure successful reading.

Allows guidance of individual students in the reading process.

Ensures that the individual reading and skill needs of each student is being met.

Allows extension and application of previous instruction

Provides time to more effectively monitor individual student strength and needs.

Allows students to work together and learn from each other.

Allows students to become problem solvers and gives them the opportunity to explore and test their understanding of the reading process.

Guided Reading

Shared Reading

The shared reading experience attempts to replicate, in a school setting, bedtime story reading. It is a relaxed and social event. These times include literature, songs, or poems.

Independent Reading

The more children read materials they can read, the more they improve and progress toward independence.

Independent Reading

Modeled Reading

Modeling reading exemplifies fluent reading, expands access to text that are beyond a student's abilities on their own and exposes students to a variety of genres.

Modeled Reading
Favorite Read Alouds are:
Tale of Desperzux Frindle

Buddy Reading
Buddy Reading is a fun way to help each other learn to read. Buddies choose a book that isn't too hard and find a good spot to read.

Buddy Reading helps the person who can't read as well hear the sounds of words when someone else reads with them. When they learn the sounds of the words better, they are able to figure out the pronunciation of the words. The better reader helps the other reader as they read the book together. The readers can take turns reading, or read the words together. The better reader can help with pronunciations, the meaning of words, and understanding the story. They can ask questions as they read.

Guided Writing

Guided writing is a time that the child and I can choose a topic. The child acts as scribe with the teacher providing support.

Shared Writing

Shared writing is a time when the children and I compose jointly on a shared topic. Typically I am the scribe but will occasionally "share the pen" when appropriate.

Independent Writing

Independent writing starts on the first day of school. Children are encouraged to share their pictures and attempts at writing by "reading" to each other and to the class.
Invented spelling is encouraged to provide additional practice in developing phonemic awareness.

Modeled Writing

This type of writing demonstrates the act of writing. It models the conventions of writing and supports the use of letter-sound relationships.

Word Study

Word study activities call for active problem solving. Students are encouraged to look for spelling patterns, form hypotheses, predict outcomes, and test them. These activities require students to continually ask themselves, "What do I know about this new word, and how is it similar to words that I already know?"

Word Study

Characteristics of leveled books

The leveling that I use is based on work by Irene Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell. It is an alphabetic coding system with A being the easiest. The following explains characteristics of levels of books and the approximate grade level associated with it.

Level A-B (kindergarten level)

8 pages
1-2 lines on a page
large print, well spaced
one illustration per page, direct match of text
and illustrations
repetition of high frequency words, 1-2 word changes
per page
simple natural language patterns
predictable story line
pattern change on last page

Level C-D (beginning first grade) books

generally 8 pages, some 12-16
1-4 lines per page
placement of text varies
return sweep
one illustration per page
story line found in text as well as pictures
2-3 or more word changes on each page
some use of past tense, inflected endings
(ing, ed, s)
compound words, multi-syllabic words

Level E, F, G (middle first grade)

8-16 pages

less than 180
wide range of punctuation
illustrations provide moderate support
text carries most of the meaning
challenging vocabulary
4 or more word changes, or the entire pattern changes
sentences may carry over to the next page
moderately complex story structures with problem/solution emphasized
event continue throughout book and over more than one page
higher level comprehension strategies, inferences

books

Level H, I, J (beginning second grade)

16-24 words per page
less than 300 total
3-8 lines per page
various font sizes
illustrations used to confirm and support text, create interest
challenging and specialized vocabulary
compound words
limited repetition and predictability
several episodes in one book
character descriptions are involved
variety of text features and genres