One of my favorite parts of teaching is that it's profession where you can continue to learn and improve your practice. I spend way too much on Amazon buying books about classroom management, child development, and improving instruction.
I'm particularly trying to work on my guided reading groups right now. I have a few students who still haven't reached that fluency hump where they are decoding with automaticity, and I'm trying to problem solve. I've noticed one relies heavily on print and phonics without using any context or picture clues. Every guided reading lesson seems to be a lesson on using skills such as "skip the word" and "use the pictures" to find what word would make sense. I'm reading a few books about guided reading to get some more ideas to help her.
Some of my favorites right now are "Preventing Misguided Reading" and "The Continuum of Literacy." I've had "Preventing Misguided Reading" for about a year and I never got around to reading it until the past few weeks. One of the most important takeaways I've had is the importance of lowering books levels for students struggling with comprehension. It's so counter intuitive as a teacher - it's all about rigor! However, we can't get students to engage deeply with a text when they are spending so much time on the the decoding process.
I've found "The Continuum of Literacy" to be really helpful as I'm trying to improve my guided reading instruction as well. It has one to two pages of notes for each guided reading level that have quick hits for comprehension and word work. I've had it open on my desk when I plan guided reading and when I'm teaching my groups as a quick reference.
Does anyone else have good recommendations for "teacher books" they're loving right now?
Hillary- what a great post! And I completely agree with your comment about not being able to really engage students with a text if they are spending all their time decoding. I too have found the Continuum really helpful. "Guided Reading" by Founts and Pinnell is also great.
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