Guided reading, video (Rachael Matchett)

This video reminded me of the video we watched in class on guided reading. The teacher starts with a small group of students. What I did notice was different, was that she had more then four students, she had six students. You could see the children in the background were working at different stations to keep themselves busy. The first part of the lesson she stated the purpose for the lesson. Then, she had them turn to a page right away. The other teacher did this from the class lesson too. They both did not immediately start reading. The students became engaged right away. The teacher asked what the children thought the author’s intent was on writing this book. She wanted to get a view point as to what the students are thinking. After this, the students began to read to themselves. These students also read out loud to themselves so the teacher could evaluate their fluency. However, I thought that the students were too close together. It would have helped if they had moved their chairs apart a bit. When they were finished reading the story, the students had to talk to their neighbor about what the author’s intent was. After the children were done discussing, the teacher came back to them and asked them questions and opinions. She was checking for comprehension when doing this, but not in a direct way that the students thought they were being tested.
After this, the teacher brought in writing and how this author wrote this book. She used a dry erase board and wrote down the different ways that the author influenced the readers. When the teacher was done doing this, the students had to go back in the book and jot down key words in a certain paragraph that they thought were important. As the children were doing this, the teacher was checking different boxes on a clip board and assessing the students.
I enjoyed watching this clip because it gave different ideas on how to conduct guided reading then what I have learned before. I do wish though that the clip would have gone into more detail and shown what the children were doing the entire time. I think it was great that the other students not involved were working at stations. We learned a lot about stations in class and how beneficial they are to the teacher and the students.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD_zW0Rd3HU