How to be organised for awesome reading...

I am trying to find out more about teaching reading groups. Although I have had great success in the past with reading groups, I feel that I am lacking something. This year I am facing a class with totally different needs than my class last year.  After using week 1 and 2 to build relationships and learning to understand my students better, I am ready to introduce guided reading sessions. I am unsure of how I will do it with this class, as there is such a wide range of needs. So I decided to research a bit using Alison Davis's book Teaching Reading Comprehension. (Pages 256 - 272)

Adjusting groups as the year progress: 
The first step that I have been missing all the years are on page 256.

Identifying each child's instructional needs. I want to keep notes in my modelling book, so that I can refer back to it and see the progress for each child. What is interesting from Alison's book is that she groups the instructional needs together, not the level.  "Groups are only useful when meeting the needs of their students. When teachers match their teaching to the needs of their students, students will make progress" (page 257)

Managing and organising group-based instruction:

"While the teacher works with one group, the other students need to be engaged in purposeful activities that relate directly to their learning goals and can be done independently" (Page 258)

The reading cycle consists of:
1. Pre-reading activity
2. Reading Instruction with the teacher
3. Post reading activity

Planning for those who are not with the teacher: 
An activity may take 2 or 3 days to complete.
"The activities may focus on learning goals related to working out words, learning vocabulary, developing fluency, or learning to use specific comprehension strategies". (Page 259)

Organisational Systems: 
Reading group Boxes - I have the books in my boxes but not the pre- and post-reading activities. How can I make this work for me? (Working smarter not harder) Included should be the child's reading "notebook".  "When the group is working with the teacher, the group box goes with them". (pg. 271) 

Reading Task Board - Rotations can be written on sticky notes, magnets, pockets, sticky dots. "This is an effective way of developing reading routines, but all the activities must be prepared ahead of time". (pg 271)

Graphic organisers - This is for older children from Year 4 - 8. 

SO WHAT? 
* Group students according to their needs. Ask Literacy leaders for advice on how this could potentially work in room 1. (the practicality of this)
* I am going to combine the reading group box and task board. A problem that I have is space in the class, but I will discuss this with my DP as we share the class space. 
* I am going to introduce reading routine activities this week. One at a time. (I am still trying to strengthen my relationship with them, but want to  gradually introduce formal work with them).
* I am going to choose work on an easy level, so that the focus is on establishing the routines, not on the content. 
* I am going to identify each child's instructional needs. (Create a template to paste in the front of the modelling book and make notes on it daily).
* Research interesting pre reading and post reading activities for year 2's and 3's. (Build up a bank from which I can draw from )
* Use Sunshine Classic more effectively in my class. 

Reading Recovery - My first 2 weeks journey

I have had 4 sessions of training for reading recovery.

What was covered:
* How to do an On Survey - and completing summary.
* How to do a Running Record in detail - what can you learn from a running record.
* What can you expect of a child that will be discontinued.
* How to identify children that qualify for Reading Recovery.

What stood out for me:
* Reading Recovery is for any child after a year at school that is working at a lower level as expected of his/her age.
* ELL students are not excluded.
* If there is no children in the 6 to 7 year band, you can take older children.
* By working with children individually, you are not wasting time teaching things the child already knows. The teaching is specific and at the child's pace.
* Reading recovery helps children not only to make accelerated progress in reading but also in writing.
* You choose your lowest children first, in order to close the gap. Children that are "just below" might still catch up in class, while children that are "well below" will just fall further and further behind. (I am using NS terminology by lack of describing this in a beter way).
* In NZ we teach reading in context before we look at word and letter. In doing a summary on these three levels, identifying strategies the child is using  and problems they are experiencing, I can get a very clear understanding of where the gaps are.

What's next:
* I am now going to start with my identification sheet. I have to select 12 children of which 4 will be chosen to work with.
* Children from 2017 and transferred from other schools gets priority.
* Children closer to 7 gets priority before 6 year olds.
* Then I will start doing my observation surveys with the selected children.

So what?
As I was working with two of my children from my own class, I realised that although they might come out at higher levels in reading, it does not mean that they are good writers. I am eager to research why this is the case. Also, one of my students only used words in his writing that he knew (mostly high frequency words or everyday words from his own vocabulary). How can I help him to get confident in sounding words out and writing them down without my assistance? How can I apply what I have been learning at RR in my class.