Words, words, words

Our discussion about vocabulary really got me thinking about how much intentional vocabulary instruction I have in my classroom.  It’s pretty infrequent.  Before a guided reading lesson we will preview the book together and I will point out unfamiliar words.  Most of the words in our guided reading books are sight words so I rarely provide context when we learn a new word before reading… it is usually just me pointing it out.  I am going to try to be more aware of that and use the word in a sentence and have the kids use the word in a sentence before they try to read the book.

I am also starting a vocabulary center next week.  I got the idea for another teacher at my school.  He created a center using the list of 100 words kids should know by 1^st grade.  There is a worksheet like this for each week, spanning 22 weeks:

week 1 vocab center

The words included in this center are not our kindergarten sight words that we teach in our curriculum.  The teacher who gave me the idea does no instruction on the words; the kids teach themselves the words at the center.  I think that might be a little too hard for some of my class, so I created word cards to go with each week’s worksheet.  This is the word cards that go with the worksheet above:

week 1 word cards

I think this will make the center a little easier, especially for my ESOL kids.  Most of the words included are words that they will see in the guided reading books.  I am really excited to see what kind of an impact this center has on reading performance in my room.  I think I am going to send home a half a page information sheet about the center to parents.  Then I will include the week’s vocabulary words in my weekly newsletter so that parents can practice having the students write and use the words at home as well.  Hopefully this will be a good first step at introducing vocabulary instruction into my classroom.

Guided Reading

I realize I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit by blogging about guided reading before we have gotten there in class but I went a little guided reading crazy in the past few weeks.  I think that guided reading was definitely my biggest downfall in my first year of teaching.  People kept telling me that I was doing it right, but I just did not feel comfortable doing it.  It never felt natural…. So this year I decided to combat that.

 I posted on the kindergarten curriculum outlook folder to ask for guided reading lesson plan templates that people use.  I was amazed at how many people responded (people in MCPS really are amazing).  Naturally, I looked at what everyone had, I looked at the outline my reading specialist had given me last year (posted on Erin’s blog under comments if you want to see that….) and I looked at the Jan Richardson template that I had been given the previous year a well.  Well, true to my nature… none of what I had was exactly what I wanted…. so I created my own.  I used the Jan Richardson template mostly, but split my plans into three days not two.  I hate that now I can’t complete two books in one week with my groups, but I think part of the problem for me last year was that I never felt like I had enough time in my small groups.  I’ve been using the templates for two weeks now and they do seem to be helping me a lot.  I hate that blogger won’t let me add an attachment… I’m linking them on Google docs… let me know if you have trouble opening them.

 guided reading lesson plan Print Concepts

guided reading lesson plan level 1-4

guided reading lesson plan 5-16

While I am on the subject of guided reading… I have 6 groups this year… YIKES!  Luckily I have been able to switch a few kids with the teacher next to me and across the hall so that I am down to four groups in my room (at least for now… the amazing thing about Kindergarten is how fast some of them pick up on things and move through the levels).  If I really buckle down and make sure I end my shared reading lesson on time I can meet with all four groups during my literacy center time (we are supposed to have “mandated” guided reading time from 9:45 to 10:45 but a lot of the time my whole group lesson creeps past 9:45).  I would like to pull my lowest group (working on print concepts… there is only two in that group) in the afternoon during writing because writing is a challenge for them anyway, and it is quiter in the room so they are able to focus better.  Unfortunately, one of the kids in that group gets pulled for ESOL during that time so for now I am pulling them in the morning with my other groups.

24 hours in a day is not enough!

I did an observation today of another teacher on my kindergarten team.  I observed his phonics lesson from 9:30-9:40 am.  He teaches phonics directly following his morning meeting and handwriting.  It is taught whole class (21 students) on the carpet.  The students have assigned seats on the carpet.  When I walked in the class was already on the carpet and was just finishing up their handwriting.  My notes and analysis of the observation are below.

Observation Field Notes	Analysis
Class is sitting on the outside edge of the carpet in a square.  The two students sitting on each side of Mr. Ferlisi are ESOL students.	The class is situated so that everyone can see Mr. Ferlisi (who is also in the square, but in his rocking chair).  He has put thought into the seating arrangement so that the ESOL students can receive more support.
Mr. Ferlisi says “Put your slate behind you and your marker on the line, that’s how I know you’re ready for phonics.”	This is a well-practiced routine.  His students know what the expectation is.  Even so, he gave verbal reminders of what the directions are to get ready.
Written on Mr. Ferlisi’s board: ____ in He fills in the blank line with t. “What word did I just make?”	Model!  Mr. Ferlisi is doing exactly what the students will do in a minute.  He is modeling how to set up the board to be successful.  Then he models how to fill in a letter on the line.
Several students are called on with raised hands.  Then he says “Class, what word did I just make?”  The whole class reads the word.	Mr. Ferlisi also models how to read the words.  This should help students to be more successful later in the lesson when they have to read the words they’ve written independently.
Mr. Ferlisi repeats the process with ____ in written on his board.  This time he fills in “n.”  He asks Camilla what word he has written.  She does not answer.  He repeats.  Then he says what sound does n make?  No response.  He makes the n sound.  Then he repeats the question.  She answers “nin”	One example was a real word and one was a pretend word.  I like the mixture so that students aren’t worried about whether their idea is a real word or not. He does not give up on Camilla.  She is not allowed to opt out of answering, instead she is given support so that she feels comfortable answering.
“Alright now it’s your turn” Students write two words on their board.  Mr. Ferlisi supports the ESOL students on each side of him by giving them letter sounds for the letters they’ve written.  He has them practice saying their words.	Mr. Ferlisi is scaffolding the lesson to give more support where it is needed.  Because his seating arrangements were planned out, he can give support without having to move from his spot on the square.
Mr. Ferlis picked an equity stick.  He started with that student and went around the carpet.  Each student read their two words.	This shows that everyone’s thoughts are valid.  Each student has a turn to share the words they have written.

The observation got me thinking about phonics and how to teach it in my own classroom.  We talked last night about phonics instruction being authentic and not taught in isolation.  It seems to me that the teacher I observed has a great handle on phonics and taught an engaging lesson where everyone was able to participate.  However, how useful is that lesson if it has no context?

So far phonics in my room as been taught in isolation as well (although anytime we read a book we identify beginning or ending sounds of a picture or a title or other activities like that).  I was thinking about how I would adapt the lesson I observed if it was my classroom.  I would have liked to do an intro to the lesson where we read a book that has a lot of “__in” words in it.  Then I would probably have the book at a center the following week and have students draw and label “__in” words from the book.  The problem with this scenario being that there is never enough time in the day.  Which is really sad because it’s Kindergarten and there should be more time for read aloud stories.  I could maybe move my phonics instruction from the morning to the afternoon directly following the read aloud book that I do when we get back from recess.  Then I could pick books that focus on the phonics lesson for the day.  Hmmmm.  Too much to do in one day and not enough time! 

But I don't want to! It's boring!

Our discussion about readability got me thinking a lot about the library in my classroom.  Very few of the books in the class library are written at a level that allows my kindergarten students to read them.  For the most part they look at the pictures and sometimes make up what the text says.  I have books that are leveled that I use for guided reading.  I also have bins for DEAR time (drop everything and read) that are easy to read books that most of the students in my class can read.  

During DEAR time I can tell that my students are more bored with reading than they are at the library center, when they get to look at any books in the class library not just the readable ones.  It’s difficult to find leveled books in our school that are also high interest, especially for the boys.  We have very few non fiction, low level books.  It makes sense, non fiction books tend to have more technical language that is not appropriate for emergent readers.  I want my students to actually be reading during DEAR time, not just looking at pictures.  I’m not sure how to combat the issue.  Maybe I could split the time... half with the readable books then half of the time at the class library.

Someone could make a fortune writing leveled texts that are about dinosaurs that are low leveled.  I have one student in particular that I know is going to be a challenge next week when I start guided reading groups.  During the MClass assessment he refused to read the books for the assessment because he didn’t want to.  He told me the book looked boring and he was not going to read it.  I still don’t have a good sense of what level he is reading on because he refuses to read anything except books he brings from home (which he’s not actually reading... just reciting memorized text).  Does anyone have ideas on how to captivate his interest using books that might not be very exciting?