Classroom DIY Guided Reading Edition

Hey friends! I wanted to share with you a few tricks I've used over the years. Sometimes everything cannot be colored ink and graphics. Sometimes you just need simple, but effective ideas.

One thing I always keep in my binder are these little response cards. It's so easy for the kids to write about the story or the word work we were doing for the day. To make them, just download them HERE. Just print and insert into a sheet protecter and you are DONE. Store them inside your reading binder for easy access. 

One day I was found an entire box, like a big box, of index cards. So I started thinking of ways I could use them effectively. At the time, my students were not taking the entire "Read To Self" time seriously. They would "pretend" read or not think about the story while reading it. This had to be fixed PRONTO, so I was excited when I found the cards. I needed a way to spice it up while keeping the time useful. I made these  labels and added them to my color coded index cards. I've found so many uses for these cards. I started with them in the "Read to Self" Center. Students had to pick two cards to act out once they finished a book & before starting a new one. I've also kept them inside my guided reading binder, and used them in the "I'm Finished" bin. 

Another easy DIY activity to implement is these Rhyme Time mats. 

I just printed them on colored yardstick and placed them into a sheet protector. I use these as a warm up activity for guided reading. It's easy to skip some of the basic skills when our students are on or above grade level, but rhyming should not be one of those things. No matter where my students are reading, I always teach them rhyming skills. It's important for students to look in the patterns of words and recognize these features. It teaches them to actually think about the words and the similarities in other words. 

All of these activities are FREE and can be accessed HERE and HERE. 

Reading Intervention

Hey! I wanted to share with you some different strategies we used this past year for reading intervention. My Reading Specialist and  I worked together to create a series of Reading Intervention Binders  to help our teachers with reading intervention. There are SO many strategies and ways to do intervention, but it makes it so much easier having a program to follow. We use this binder during our intervention time and at the beginning of each guided reading lesson. We focus on word work, phonics, sight words and vocabulary first. Then, each binder moves into fluency and comprehension. They are designed so you can use them with a variety of reading levels. I am a firm believer in a separate intervention time every day. I usually do this during the last 15 minutes of every day. It's challenging, but it is so powerful to revisit those struggling readers outside of your normal reading block.

One thing we tried to do was provide a variety of ways to reach your students. Each binder includes assessments so that you can see which part of the binder will most help your students. We use Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark System in order to track our students progress. I give the benchmark once a grading period, but do informal running records in between.

Here's how often we are required to give informal running records:

Standard Running Record Form 

Running records are a great way to determine a students weakness in a quick fashion. The most important component is analyzing the running record! 

We use the following chart for our first grade students as they progress through their reading levels:

The intervention binder is designed to start at the basic level for each grade level.

All of the binders address the components of reading and the literacy continuum.


Word families are a great way to introduce students to decoding skills while teaching vocabulary at the same time! Our Word Families Binder is designed for the Kindergarten- Second Grade classroom! Students who are struggling with decoding should start with word families because they are easier to decode. We begin with short vowels and then move into digraphs/blends.

 Here are a few pictures from our First Grade Reading Intervention Binder

   

 Students have the opportunity to build vocabulary through learning synonyms and antonyms.

Decoding is an important skill that can hinder a students reading ability. These pages were designed to help students segment and blend words together.

We've got all components covered! Fluency passages are also included.

The first grade binder includes preprimer, primer and first grade sight word activities.  My students love using these pages. They are designed to be no prep but still effective. I often use these as morning work or as a warm up to our intervention lesson. I've also used them in our writing groups. Students have to create sentences based on these words. Students need repetitive practice with familiar words. A few weeks after I've assessed my students, I'll give them these words again and have them practice them in different ways. That way, students show a higher level of mastery. Sometimes students seem like they know the words because we've "skilled and drilled them". That's why I like to revisit previously taught words or skills about  a month later, so I can be sure they've developed a deeper understanding.  We often think of spiral review so much in math and sometimes forget that reading requires spiral review as well!

For this activity, we use it in several different ways. One way to is have the students place a marble or counter in the box next to the sentence you say. The other is to have one reader read a sentence out loud and have the other students move their counter to the correct sentence. To do this, I simply print two sets of the same page and spread them out. It should work out to where the student next to them has a different page. 

Sight word three in a row is a favorite! After I use these pages in small group instruction, I place them in a student binder at a reading station. The students know exactly how to play the game since we've practiced it in small groups. The other great thing about this is that words change and increase in difficulty so the students aren't just using the same two game boards over and over again. All of the binders have these activities, the words are just more difficult. 

I prefer to do my reading intervention time separate from my reading block. I like to do this because I want my students to practice reading all day long. We should consider ourselves reading teachers all day long. When we have a large amount of students below grade level,  I always try to take a mental inventory of how much print they are exposed to. We cannot change what happens when they leave our rooms each day, however, we can expose them to as much print as possible when they are under our care :) 

As with any intervention system, assessment drives instruction. Use your benchmark or diagnostic data to determine where your students need the most help! I LOVE chatting about data, so feel free to e-mail me or message me on Facebook about your specific needs! 

Here are the binders in pictures:

2nd Grade Binder

 

Word Families 

Third Grade

Fourth Grade 

Fifth Grade

Click here to download the reading development chart and running record forms.

Reading Intervention Activities

Reading Intervention Activities 

Hey friends! Are you tired of searching high and low for reading intervention strategies for your struggling readers? I was too! So I teamed up with my amazing friend  Karen Mallard to bring you a post about running records and reading intervention activities for the classroom.

Reading Intervention Tips

The question we hear so much is, where do I start with my  reading intervention program? The answer is simple: assessments. Reading intervention must start with assessment. Teachers must know what areas students are struggling  with so they can meet their needs effectively. 

Once you assess students, use the data to identify those students who are at risk. Then, be sure  to monitor their progress often. Struggling readers should be assessed at least bi weekly, if not weekly.

After you’ve assessed the student, it’s important to analyze the running record. Running records give the teachers so much information. 

Self-Corrections in Struggling Readers

A topic that we have been discussing at school recently has been self-correction rates.  Some teachers asked for guidance so I gave them some guidelines.  I also think that if a student has a 1:1 ratio but has more than 5 errors that were self-corrected the child is working way too hard.  Analyze the errors and look at the information the student is neglecting.  Is it a weakness in decoding left to right, or a lack of high-frequency word vocabulary?  Address the weakness so the child becomes a more accurate and confident reader. Students who struggle with sight words or high frequency words, can practice those daily using sight word games! These make their learning fun and the kids enjoy them so much!

Self-Correction Rates

1:1 Excellent

1:2 Good

1:3 Fair

1:4 and higher show that the student isn’t monitoring consistently.

Is the student noticing that it doesn’t sound right, make sense, or look right?

Is the student self-correcting with only one source of information and ignoring the others?

The goal is to be flexible and to use all of the cues/information together. (Meaning-pictures, Structure-language, Visual-letters.)

Errors In Reading

Errors in reading are a common issue. It’s important to look for patterns with errors. Are students only having errors with proper nouns? Do they struggle with reading all the way through the word? Think about why you think the student is making the error. This is crucial to figure out how to drive the instruction.

In the primary grades, students sometimes learn a strategy I call “Guess and GO”. These students are looking at the beginning of the word, and guessing on the rest. They do not read through the middle of the word.

  

Sometimes students will have errors similar to guessing, like this:

was/saw

here/her

us/use

Whenever students have these errors, I show them both words. I ask the students if they can see how the words are different and how they are the same. We discuss the meaning of each word  and then use instructional strategies from our intervention binders to help fix it. We use these instructional strategies in our small group instruction to help students make progress in their independent reading levels. 

In our binders, we've included running records that you are analyzed to help you learn how to properly use running records as a data point for your students. This has been so helpful to so many of our colleagues!

Through the intervention binders , students practice skills that they are weak in every single day. This gives students the opportunity to practice the instructional skills they need in order to help close their achievement gap.  If you have questions about how often you should do reading intervention, ask me over here. 

  

Reading Assessment Drives Instruction

Hey friends! Reading intervention has ALWAYS been a large part of our day, but I feel like in the last 3-4 years, it's become so much more. General education teachers are now as skilled as reading specialists in some areas! We have so much thrown on us that we pick up and learn different strategies and ways to teach students. Our country has become so "data driven"...but is this a good thing or not??Thoughts? I'd love to hear how you feel about data!  Sound in on my Facebook page. 

I'm working on a series of blog posts regarding Reading Intervention. For today, I want to discuss assessments.

Reading Assessment

The purpose for assessment is to develop a base line for your students. When I first started teaching, I would only test on sight words or rhyming words. I would test in chunks. Now, I do the entire reading assessment at the beginning of the year. This gives me the entire picture of where the student is at and a great place to start with my instruction.

I teamed up with my literacy coach, Karen Mallard, to come up with different ways to help the struggling kiddos. One thing that has helped my students so much was focusing on what words they needed to know in order to advance to a certain levels. We have to assess the students word knowledge before beginning instruction, so these tools are very helpful because everything is right there for you.

After I've analyzed the data, we focus on the words in this list as their "priority" sight words. These are words we feel like the students have to know in order to advance to to next reading level. Students need to learn a TON of sight words, but this is my starting point. The activities in the binder reinforce learning the skills. Shown above and below are the sight word assessments. The binders include assessments for all of the components of reading: Formative Beginning Sound Assessment, Rhyming Assessment, Sight Word Assessments (Reading Levels A-F), Word Awareness, Syllables, Fluency and Comprehension. Once you have assessed students, the binders include activities to instruct students.

The binders include a variety of activities to help students recognize these words.

My students LOVE Three in a Row!!

Stay tuned for more posts about reading intervention! In the meantime, check out the feedback from our intervention binders for grades K-4!! You can check them out here!