One of the options for tasks was to use a quiet signal that my CT already has in place within the classroom as well as trying a new one of my own. Her technique is to say "eyes eyes" and the students mirror back by saying "eyes eyes" and looking at the teacher. I tried this to little avail, as I believe more emphasis should have been put on reinforcing classroom rules in the beginning of the year such as quiet signals and explicit ally telling them how they should respond. The new quiet signal I tried with the students was to do one that my USF supervisor does with us cohort interns. She says "thumbs up if you hear my voice", eliciting students to raise their thumbs and halt what they are doing. This works great, because children are raising their arms to show others that they are listening and ready to learn. We tries this several times throughout the year, and my CT, Ms. Banga gave me a printout of several other quirky attention grabbers like "Holy moly!", "Guacamole!"
Usually during reading centers from 8:40 until 10:00 I am part of table 6 where students are cutting out and gluing word sorts into their word work folders. Today, however, I was able to take over the position of Guided reading coach during the first two sessions of 20 minutes each. The students were listening and reading for words that have a "oa" or "ow" in them that make the (owe) sound. Each time they discovered a new word in their district provided texts, they were able to take a marker and go up to the class anchor chart with words that have "oa and "ow" in them. Each week my CT changes the word families so students get a fresh new set of blends and vowel patterns. They seemed to enjoy the activity, and I saw that some of them were paying attention better when they were the ones reading. We started out doing choral reading an asked single responses from the entire group, encouraging them to share their answers freely. |
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