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Home : 2010 : Jun : 23
This will be long, but I hope it helps! I made some adaptations to things I already did... First, I had six reading groups. I got to 3 per day, because I didn't have a long enough block to do Daily "5"... we did Daily "3." My school does schoolwide Writing Workshop, and I allocated a different time of the day (just 10 minutes) for "read to someone" so we just did the others. So. My first mini lesson was always the Morning Message. As soon as we finished, I announced, "Today, I am meeting with the Dolphin group first. Then, I pulled out a checklist on a clipboard with all the students' names. I would quickly go down and ask each student what they wanted to do first. (I would start with kid #1 on the first "round." Next round, start with kid #2, next round kid #3... next day, start with kid #4, etc. so that everyone got a chance to choose first!--I had only 2 sets of letter stamps! But it worked!) Students in the group I was meeting with did Read to self for that round. As soon as a child told me what their choice was, I would jot it on my checklist (R=read to self, WW=word work, LR=listen to reading). Then the student would go straight to listen to reading if he had chosen that. Students who chose read to self went to get book totes and came back to their circle places. Students who chose WW would tell me which kind they wanted (to avoid arguments over materials-- I have 2 sets of letter stamps, 4 sets of plastic letters, one "name vowels game, 2 different sets of opposite word games, 2 magnadoodles, etc. it was plenty--- because about 1/3 of my class would be doing WW at a time, while the others did R or LR). So at this point, there would be some students at the computers beginning Listen to Reading, some (Dolphin group) with their book totes at our meeting place and some in circle. I quickly went to the children in the circle and assigned places for them to work "You go work on the mat by the door, you work by the easel, you go work by the coats, etc. Then, I would got to the group meeting place with my dolphins. We would read an old GR book, have a mini lesson, perhaps practice on white boards or do a few flashcards, then read a new book to review new skills. Then those students would either go to tables to do an activity related to the GR, or they would do read to self. At that point, I would look at my checklist, find the students who had chosen "Read to Self" and quickly go and read with as many as I could. I could usually get to at least 3 and sometimes 6 students in just 10-15 minutes. I found that a quick 1-2 or 3 minute individual session was really enough for most kids. I took my binder and went to them. That saved time, rather than having them come to me! Then I would ring the bell, everyone cleaned up, and we met together for a mini lesson. We did just 3 rounds per day. I felt like I was doing aerobic exercise some days, trying to get it all done, but the students were busy with worthwhile things. Most days, I met with 3 groups (so 9-15 kids, depending on the group size) AND 9-15 individual students. I felt like it was the best I I've ever done at getting to that many students in small groups/individually per day. On Fridays, I sacrificed the last round and gave the students the time to return books and choose books for the next week. I kept a list of the groups handy, and just went to the next one each time. Let me know if you have more questions or if I'm unclear!
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