Positive Fridays - Week of June 9th, 2014

TGIF Everyone!  This post will mostly be about the past 2 weeks as it has been awhile since I posted a Positive Friday post.  The school year has come to a close so I will post again next school year if I find myself a new teaching job.

The last couple of weeks of school sure went fast!  My last day with the students was last Friday and I worked 2 days this week boxing everything up that belonged to the school and myself.  I am hopeful I'll find a new teaching job.  I will miss my amazing teammates, office staff, administration, students, and parents.  They really made for a great fun school year!

• Between two schools I had a student who had missed almost 50 days.  When she was here, she learned like a sponge!  She finally mastered all of her letter sounds and all, but 1 of her sight words!  I have no doubt she'll learn that last word over the summer.
• Two other students were struggling to count orally to 100, but by the last week both of them mastered that skill!  Hard work pays off!
• Our last week we did so many fun things.  We started off with a fun Field Day in the morning.  This district did Field Day a lot different than I am used to.  Each class all the students competed against themselves and there were 17 different stations.  The children had so much fun!
• We also had Water Day where the children ate Popsicles,did a sponge relay, cup relay, played with bubbles, shaving cream, and picked up tiny toys with their toes.  I was blessed to have two volunteers help out!
• The last day of school we made a Father's Day card, cleaned the tables with shaving cream (they wanted to do this all day long!), watched Reading Rainbow and Magic School Bus videos.  We also played several board games.  The children had an absolute blast!
• I also just had a very kind parent say she would write me a letter of recommendation.  My principal said the same thing.  I can't wait to get these letters as they may help me get a job.  I'll also be using the letter sent me by the father of a wonderful parent that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.  It's great to get positive feedback from parents and administration.
• I also was just forwarded a kind letter that the grandparent of a child who was so kind to volunteer every week for me (my only weekly volunteer) sent to the principal and assistant principal on my behalf.

How many days of school do you have left or are you done?  Do you have any end of the year positives that you would like to share?

I plan to start working on my next series of teaching products, the real way to do ISNs (interactive student notebooks).  Do you use them?  What subjects?  What grade level?  What do you like about them?  Elmer's glue or gluesticks?  Composition Notebooks or Spiral Notebooks?  I'd love to hear your opinions!

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings.  Keep on smiling!

Grouping - C.A.F.E.

This summer I have delved into a couple of books that are making me rethink or at least tweak the way that I have taught reading in the past.

The two sisters Joan and Gail (www.the2sisters.com) discuss in their CAFE book, the difference between guided reading groups and strategy groups.  In guided reading groups children are at the same or close to the same reading level.  You may call them by color groups: blue group, yellow group, red group, orange group or maybe you gave them animal group names: horses, dolphins, tigers, and bears. 

Strategy groups are where you are working on one strategy with a group.  You may have your higher reader or two in with a lower reader or average readers.  Everyone is simply working on the same skill.  It could be comprehesion or accuracy or something else.  At times especially in the primary grades you very well could have a group or two that are on the same reading level, but you are focusing on the strategy that they need. 

Often times in 2nd grade I noticed that my highest reading group had different areas they needed work on.  Some needed heavy comprehension while others could read enough words to be in the high group, but couldn't read words they had never seen.  Rather than plugging in some of both strategies as I had been doing, it seems like the best bet would have been to form strategy groups.  I should have used the phonics screener data that I had and put those needing word work in another group even if it meant being in with my lowest readers.  Of course the higher level reader would have a higher level book! 

I am proud that my students have always made huge reading gains, but I believe this format may help them make even bigger learning gains.

Click the book to head to Amazon and grab yourself a copy!  All opinions of the strategies above are of my own!  Be looking for other opinions of this great book in the near future!

So my question to you is how do you teach reading groups?  Do you do it by guided reading levels or by strategy?  What do you feel the advantages are of each?

As always thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!  Keep on smiling!