Blog Post #1

For my first blog post, I decided to reflect on my reading of Chapter 4 which was all about teaching with a sense of urgency.  This chapter really made me think about the effectiveness of my reading and writing instruction in my classroom.  

At the beginning of the school year, I spent so much time going over the expectations of our Daily 5 rotations.  We would review them, practice them, and repeat.  I really made a point to explain why we needed each procedure and worked to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.  These components were essential to making the rotation work as well as they do now.  I have to admit that I have been pretty pleased with how well my students do during these rotations and it is one of my favorite parts of the day because of how good my students are at knowing what to do without me even having to tell them.  This chapter made me think a little differently about how effective these rotations are though.  They run really smoothly but am I really doing everything I can to provide my students with important reading and writing skills during this time?

This chapter talks about how we need to demonstrate important skills and use scaffolding to help prepare our students to use them independently.  I could really improve in this area.  I do a lot of this already but I could add more urgency to it and really set my students up to begin practicing the skills during their rotations.   

I plan on trying this as soon as possible.  I want to start the rotations with a specific skill that I demonstrate to the whole class.  I will really walk them through the whole process and then I will gradually, throughout the week, release more responsibility onto them until they are ready to use the skill on an independent level.