Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Kaelyn Riley's Guided Reading Video

In this video I found called Modeling Guided Reading FAQ, there were many great questions that any person may have about the system and an actual first grade teacher describing what she uses in her classroom. In this clip, it differed from the one we watched in class, because it looked like she was doing the group reading in a room with just the group she was working with, as opposed to staying in the classroom along with the rest of the class. This may have just been for the video, or it may be their usual practice. She talked about practicing skills and reading strategies in different leveled books. The teacher seems very active, and focused on each child’s needs. She knows their strengths and weaknesses and keeps rigorous data on each student.

            This video also made this system accessible to any teacher, by talking about the simplicity it holds, by using whiteboards, index cards, games, and talking about the strategies. I even looked at the comments below this video and people were saying how thankful they were that someone explained Guided Reading, and feel more confident in using it in their own classrooms.

            Something the teacher talked about in the video was that not only is Guided Reading helpful for the students to get individualized attention and more focused practice, but it also allows the teacher to see where students need more help, and make sure they are in the right group. She said the groups are always changing, based on their needs. She organizes the kids by colors, not by a different name such as a high level and low level readers, so the kids won’t have a stigma associate with being in a certain group. Even in their groups, she does not call them over to the table by the color; instead she calls them by their individual names.

            In the video, the first grade teacher also talks about other centers she has in her classroom, so while students are doing their centers rotations, Guided Reading is one of them, and she said she worked with the students on how to behave and be productive while she is working with different Guided Reading groups.

            This video supported a lot of what we read and what we talked about in class, but this was a great real life example of a teacher putting the system into practice. She has a positive outlook on Guided Reading, and seems to have a well-developed system to help each one of her students.

            If you want to hear what she has to say, check it out at this website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txC-Qo_8GiU

 

2 comments:

  1. I like what Kaelyn said about the video being a real life of example of guided reading. Watching a teacher do this will help us do it with our students in the future.

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  2. The clip showed the teacher using a whiteboard and index cards with words written on them; I wonder if she was introducing these to the students before or after they started reading.

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