Jan Richardson .The Next Step in Guided Reading. *BOOK TALK* Chapter. 2 Assessment and Grouping

Chapter 2:  Assessment and Grouping

So I am not a fan or testing, testing, testing.  This is not fun for me and it is definitely NOT what the kids want to do either.  However, these are necessary to figure out where our students are coming from and where they are moving to.  These assessments will help you gather information and group students accordingly.  Early readers will need more variety of assessments than more fluent readers.   Some of the Early Reader Assessments can be found below:

This gem is from Julie at Make, Take and Teach.  Her post on Sight Word and Progress Monitoring Sight Words can be found here. 

  

Dictated Sentences that are useful to see what a child can do without any help.  The benefit to this is to understand how the child processes sounds with words they come to that they do not understand.  The on the left is from Kimberly Savage and can be found here. The one on the right is from Teacher Mermaid and it can be found here. 

Writing Samples are helpful for four main reasons:

•  Oral Language and Vocabulary - how broad is their understanding of vocabulary words, and is it interesting?
• Visual Memory - Sight Words are they spelled correctly?
• Phonemic Awareness - Is the student hearing words correctly?
• Concepts of Print - Did the student write left to right?

Another important tool used for assessment in Guided Reading are Running Records.  My district uses Reading A-Z, which has an excellent tool for Running Records, and that teamed with our PALS website there isn't much work to be done, but if you don't have these things at your disposal than you need to first determine the Accuracy Level (the number of words read accurately-which includes errors corrected-by the total number of words in the passage) Next, you need to Analyze the Errors, in which you look at meaning, structure and visual cues. Then, you are going to Analyze Strategies does the student self-monitor, cross check, and self-correct?  The next step with Running Records is to Assess Fluency. Here is a fluency chart below. Which can also be found here. 

The fifth step in implementing Running Records is to Assess Comprehension.  This is important to see if the student understands the text.  You should not expect 100% comprehension but between 75 - 80% is considered that the student sufficiently understood the passage. 

So - now that you have all of this information at your fingertips "Now What?"  Look to see where the student has a weakness and target your instruction there.  

I am loving this chapter because there are so many tools included in the chapter that helps determine a students' comprehension and other Assessment tools for older students as well.  Probably the best section of all the chapters is a "Question Section" at the back of the chapter.  So while I've read through this chapter, the majority of the questions I've had throughout the chapter is all answered right there!  

Have a Happy Wednesday!

Jan Richardson .The Next Step in Guided Reading. *BOOK TALK*

So back in March I was given the opportunity to go to the Virginia Reading Conference.  What an AMAZING experience!  I was able to sit in on Jan Richardson's seminar and was quite impressed.  I was able to get her book right from the conference.  I am just a little ashamed I am just now opening it to really get into the meat of it.  So I figured I would go through Chapter by Chapter.  If I get through 2 chapters a week I will be right on track for back to school time!  Everything wrote below are my own thoughts and some resources that I have found, I have linked back to everything possible as well as given credit.  I did not go into detail with this chapter, but kind of outlined Guided Reading as we know it just highlighting some of my favorite parts of the whole process.  So here goes!

Chapter 1:  Preparing for Guided Reading

Sometimes there are just so many resources and things that we do have at our fingertips, Guided Reading seems a little overwhelming of what should be used and when it should be able to "fix" a students' problem.  Guided Reading can be daunting!  This chapter is an overview that gives suggestions on how to implement a balanced reading program in the most effective way.

In order to start Guided Reading you must have an established classroom community that knows how to do the following:

• how to work with others
• solve problems without asking for help
• how to use work stations or centers
• know and understand rules and routines

Once these things are implemented in the classroom you can start with the Balanced Reading Approach which most of us have heard of: read-aloud, shared reading, and independent reading.  The Read-Aloud portion can either be classic or interactive where students are engaged and discuss what they've listened to.   Shared Reading is usually done whole group where the teacher instructs students with specifics skills and or focus on fluency.  Independent reading is important and has to be taught so that students have quality reading material that they want to read and can understand.  

The book goes on to talk about different schedules to help you implement Guided Reading in the first couple weeks of school.  Also it talks about different literacy workstations.  These are some of my favorites. 

Writing (I hope I linked everything back correctly to their correct home)

  

Beautiful Writing Center

Class Writing Journals from Teach-A-Roo

Word Study - I use Words Their Way in my classroom, but there are lots of ways to use Word Study in your classroom, I find this very helpful to teach word patterns as opposed to having students memorize spelling words. 

Second Story Window does an amazing job giving a thorough walk-through for Words-Their Way

Level Skill Focus Sound Sorts Magnetic letters/White boards Sound Boxes Writing Guide

This is from Jan Richardson's site, and is linked back to the full document, that goes through Skill Focus and what should be done. 

Read the Room

Super Cute resources from Really Roper!  

Computer 

Aren't these adorbs!  I love what Totally Terrific in Texas did for the Computer Choice cards.  And, its a freebie!

Some great sites for on-line learning!  Can't find the link for this though

Basically whatever works for you - USE IT!  Maybe start with just a couple things and build on it when you get more comfortable!  However, you should always encourage independent reading.  Have a nice library and help your students find books that they will enjoy!  It is recommended that there be a Reading Workshop Contract

There should also be use of an Independent Reading Record.  Students should be able to take notice of the title, author and genre of the book read.  So if students come to you not understanding Genre's that is something that needs to be taught right away and you should probably have something for students to refer back to either in your library or in their Reading Notebook.   Here's an example for older students/grade levels.

Students should also be made at least once a week to write an Independent Reading Response.  These will help keep students accountable. Depending on your students' ability you can make this as easy as drawing a picture of their favorite party and writing a few sentences or having them construct a letter to you while critically thinking about situations that happened throughout the book. There are other things instructed to include in their Reading Notebook but the thing to remember is that it is basically a working document for the year to show what students know and understand.  Where students are practicing skills taught during shared reading those particular items should not be graded. 

Within this chapter Jan did an amazing job to give pointers at the end to help manage things that seem to really pluck certain teacher's nerves, ie too much noise, how to get everything done, and how to stop interruptions.  There were also lots of different resources for readers response!  The next chapter is all about Assessment so I am excited about figuring out the Jan Plan!