Jessica Barwick: March/April Blog Post

Routman Chapter 10:  Examine Guided Reading

As I build my literacy program, guided reading is the component that I am most excited to improve upon and the one that I need the most practice with.  When I held book clubs this year, I developed a system that saw success but also areas in which to grow, and I will be using many of Routman's ideas to do so in the future.

Thinking toward next year, my biggest takeaways from this chapter are how to incorporate guided reading groups into the weekly ELA schedule, activities that other students are working on during meetings, and having a clear focus and plan for each group ahead of time.

As far as the schedule is concerned, Routman suggests having guided reading groups only 2-3 days per week in the intermediate grades and not struggling to try to meet with each group every time you meet.  When I started book clubs this year, I tried to work with each of my four groups every time we met, and with only 45 minutes allotted, this was taxing on me and not as beneficial for the children because we didn't get to go as deeply into our lessons as I would have liked.  By setting up a clear schedule, students will know what to expect as far as meeting times with me, and I will be able to put all my attention on one small group for 15-20 minutes at a time.  I'm sure I will have to set a timer for myself in order to stop on time!  It's amazing how time can go by so quickly when delving deeply into good books because there is so much to discuss.

Another piece of this chapter that I will come back to is what the other students are doing while I am meeting with a guided reading group.  With my book clubs this year, I had groups all meeting at the same time, reading aloud with each other, while I circulated the room meeting with the different groups.  Routman suggests that all other students are working on a quiet reading/writing activity, and I think this will help with my focus and with management issues.  To be honest, I had to spend some of my instruction time telling other groups to keep it down or stay on task instead of focusing 100% on the group I was with.  This disrupted their learning and wasted time.  If I tried Routman's suggestions for activities, it might help keep everyone more on task.  Perhaps, there could be room in the schedule for everyone to read aloud with their groups but also for me to work with guided reading groups separately.  I definitely want to give students time to discuss their novels without me being there, but I would need to model how to do that in a guided reading group before setting them loose.  I like the idea of having students work on one or two guiding questions independently after meeting with me, then moving on to choice independent reading, or a different literacy project.  This would certainly take a good bit of modeling and practice, because many of my students throughout the years have not always been good at self-direction and independence.  However, I know it can be done because I have seen improvements in this area during our independent reading block.  It just takes time!

Finally, I will do a better job in the future of having a plan in place before meeting with my groups.  For my book clubs this year, I treated them almost like independent reading conferences.  I had reading strategies and comprehension activities I knew I wanted to work on with the groups, but I would work on them as they came up organically during a reading session with me.  I didn't always have a specific plan in place ahead of time, just general ideas of things I wanted to work on.  By narrowing a focus, assigning a specific chapter ahead of time and being more prepared, our time together will be more valuable and productive.

Creating a well-balanced, organized, and engaging literacy program in my classroom is something I am constantly working on, and after reading Routman's book, I am even more excited to build upon what I am already doing and see my readers grow!