My collaborating teacher is very flexible with how much she lets me do in the classroom, and invited me to perform a guided reading session with four different groups of students today for reading centers. Facilitating a guided reading lesson with six or seven first graders is very challenging. One can find themselves wrapped up in questions or finding the right words to say in order to transition between activities. Today, students were handed on-level books from the county having an average of about 10 pages each. Each guided reading group had been selected for different competencies, and therefore a different story was used with each group. Usually, my CT has them looking for certain word families in their readings or to find new words that they have not encountered before or have yet to remember. During the each group's reading time, I was asked to select one student from each group to be kind of the benchmark for the group in terms of words per minute and accuracy. I did an informal running record where the students were timed in their entire attempt, instead of counting down from a minute. This reminds me of the first time I tried out running records in the classroom and recorded how long it took them instead of how many they could get within a certain time frame. All in all, it was a good experience to work in a small group focused on reading with children.
Upon leaving at the end of the day, I feel as though I attempted yet another performance task concerning managing the classroom and students within. When it was time to go, I grabbed the bus sheet with all of the students in groups according to their bus numbers. My CT has students group up and hold hands all the way to their buses so no one misses their bus while others get on. This is a good system, and it allows others to catch mistakes or aide in navigation. Keeping the students in a relatively single-file line, we were able to walk all the way around the bus ramp efficiently, giving each student a fist bump as they got on their bus. We can say that this establishes individual accountability, because students aren't allowed to leave unless they say goodbye to their teacher (Weinstein, 1997, pg. 188) Oftentimes I will see them make a self -adjustment and turn around for a fist bump before they climb the seemingly giant bus stairs for them. This makes a kinesthetic connection to remembering sending the children safely home to their parents/guardians.
References
Weinstein, C., & Mignano, A. (1997). Elementary classroom management: Lessons from research and practice (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Upon leaving at the end of the day, I feel as though I attempted yet another performance task concerning managing the classroom and students within. When it was time to go, I grabbed the bus sheet with all of the students in groups according to their bus numbers. My CT has students group up and hold hands all the way to their buses so no one misses their bus while others get on. This is a good system, and it allows others to catch mistakes or aide in navigation. Keeping the students in a relatively single-file line, we were able to walk all the way around the bus ramp efficiently, giving each student a fist bump as they got on their bus. We can say that this establishes individual accountability, because students aren't allowed to leave unless they say goodbye to their teacher (Weinstein, 1997, pg. 188) Oftentimes I will see them make a self -adjustment and turn around for a fist bump before they climb the seemingly giant bus stairs for them. This makes a kinesthetic connection to remembering sending the children safely home to their parents/guardians.
References
Weinstein, C., & Mignano, A. (1997). Elementary classroom management: Lessons from research and practice (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.