Cosmas Noticing Blog

As my students get more comfortable with “book club” or guided reading groups I have been noticing a lot of positive changes in their progress.  Many of my students had never been exposed to a guided reading type of situation and were a bit uncomfortable at first reading out loud and at their own pace.  However, now that we have been engaging in book club for some time it’s very noticeable that students are more comfortable.  They understand now that it is not a race to finish and it’s also not a problem to be the last to finish.   I feel that the success and progress of each group stems from my MT carefully selecting which students would be placed in which groups.  She showed me how she usually does this selection process based on test scores and her own observations of reading levels.  I think not just going by a reading level that a test produces is greatly helpful when forming guided reading groups.  At the end of the day you know your students better than anyone else so your instinct on where they will work the best is more likely going to be right.  With a solid foundation of groups, I have noticed that my students feel more in their element.  They aren’t competing with the student next to them.  Instead, they are focused on themselves which gives me a chance to better individualize their instruction.

              I also notice that since the comfort level has been established, students are much more open to listening and trying the different skill and strategies for reading that I teach them.  For example, in one group I have been working extensively with them on noticing punctuation and making the appropriate pauses or exclamations.  I first did this by doing some call and response reading to model how we would use the punctuation properly.  Then, I released some responsibility for students to make a natural pause when they see a punctuation mark before they continue.  I initially thought this skill was going to be a huge work in progress over the next month or so.  However I was pleasantly surprised when these students latched onto this strategy after about 4 or 5 days of practicing this.  Though this is something we will need to continue to practice, I was very happy with this positive progress that happened so quickly.