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Home : 2006 : Jun : 26

    more about k
    By i teach k
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    thanks for you reply. it seems like there's so much to tell it's hard to say it all and not seem like i am rambling on and on. but here goes. our school district...specifically our k-2 building...has committed to changing our reading program and we are moving toward using the strategies in debbie's book and also fountas and pinnell. we have almost our entire k-2 staff onboard and we hope that our enthusiasm will get the teachers who are more sceptical to come around eventually. first of all, i read debbie's book cover to cover and was really excited to try it. i wanted my kids doing the stuff that hers were!!! you know the feeling? i had already implemented literacy centers in my classroom and had been doing that for a while so i think that made things a little easier for me. it wasn't like i had to try everything new at once. here's my typical schedule, maybe this will help answer how i implement it in k:

    8:30 - 9 As the kids are arriving the children can either choose books from the different leveled baskets or from their individual browser boxes (children have their own box with books at their specific level...these change as the year progresses). I have different books that are leveled....wright group, books from our reading series, scholastic, etc. The children know what level they are at and can read from any box up to their level. They can read alone or with a friend and can sit anywhere they want to in the room. Sometimes, instead of reading they will get their journals out and write instead. Journal time is completely free...no prompts, except sometimes on a Monday morning i might ask them to tell me about their weekend. During this time, i might work with a table of kids conferencing on their writing or i might pull a group back to work on guided reading.

    9-9:45 i usually start with poems or songs...we will do a few. sometimes i select or the kids do. differents poems/songs for different skills like rhyming, blends, endings, etc. then i will read a specific book for read aloud. i tried to follow some of the book suggestions in debbie's book and some selections from the workshops i took. last year i mostly worked on schema and questioning techniques. remember, i started half way through the year and was trying to figure it all out as i went along. i hope to follow her monthly suggestions this year....of course i do have to remember that she taught first grade so i will have to water it down somewhat. after read aloud we do our shared reading with a big book. ( i use alot of wright group and rays readers) i will usually use the same big book for two or three days, expanding on the text. Big books are where i do my mini lessons....finding letters, sight words, punctuation, etc. Then its on to shared or interactive writing. We work together to create a chart or story relating to whatever lesson i am teaching. We use the shared pen technique where the children come up and actually write the letters/words on the chart. in the beginning of course, they will only be able to write letters here and there, but as the year goes on they basically write the entire chart. one child writes while the others sound out the words and call out the letters. i basically only intervene to make sure the spelling is correct. our rule of thumb is that anything that gets hung up in the room must have correct spelling...but phonetic spelling is fine for all other writings.

    9:45 - 10:30 this is when the kids work on writing.....we do lots of innovations to texts during interactive writing and then the kids illustrate either alone or with partners. we make lots of class big books that we laminate and put in our classroom library. or we make charts stories and illustrate. this time is used for these activities and also journal writing. the kids write in their journals every day.

    10:30 - 11:30 this is when the kids use literacy centers and i work with small groups in guided reading. i try to meet with two groups each day for about 15-20 minutes each group. i can elaborate on this more later if you want.

    ok...i have rambled on far too long...........if you have any more questions please feel free to ask or tell me any suggestions you have for me too! i am very interested to hear what is working for others in their classrooms.

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