Thinking about Challenges and Changes

This past week we have taken some time to get back to the basics. As we hit the mid-point of our year together I was starting to observe some of the things I have seen in the past throughout the year... a lot of movement during independent reading time – a lot of “time wasting” movement! I am happy that I have not been seeing this all year, and it is a challenge I expected to arise sooner or later. So as a way of refocusing our independent choice time I decided that we were going to spend some time reviewing and getting back to the basics.

This was done through a lot of conversations this week before and after independent choice time. Mid-week as the students were settling in for choice time I heard one student say to other (as they were about to do Read to Someone) “Remember to grab your back up book in case we finish this one!” YES! They were really listening to me! On Friday we had mandatory Read to Self  practice time, some student were bummed that they could not do other choices, however we reviewed why we needed to have this time and overall it was great. It was very quiet and there was little movement and most of the 25 students were on task and reading, only a few were “fake reading” so I feel a conversation about that would be helpful next week.

Overall my observations and surveys have continue to yield positive results, the student enjoy Reading Workshop, and I am confident that choices are something I will continue to offer as a way of keeping my student motivated to read, but the question has been asked “How do you plan to sustain what you have started?” The answer to that question is simple, for this year, we will just keep doing things the way we have always done them; this year’s 4^th graders don’t know any different. But to truly sustain what I have started there are some things that I would like to change.

My biggest challenge right now it TIME, and that is not something I have the power to change. Using our Reading Workshop time for independent choices and our basal reading book leaves us with very little time to spare, and there are other things that I would like to include into Reading Workshop as well. For example, this week in our basal we read a story title The Last Dragon, because this story took place in Chinatown we also took time to focus on the Chinese New Year, which started this Monday. It was a perfect story to connect to something that was going on in the world. We talked about the Chinese zodiac calendar, what “year” we were all born in, and made paper lanterns for the Lantern Festival, celebrated on the last night of the Chinese New Year, not to mention needing to find time for a comprehension quiz. The students enjoyed all of these extras, and it was a great learning experience, however, if you add all that stuff in to our already crammed Reading Workshop block and you are not left with much time for choices. In my research much of what I read talked about having time for more than one choice each day, but in our classroom that just hasn’t fit. Students have a weekly log on which they log what they have done each day, I have thought about making it a two week log where students can look at what they have done over a two week period and try to complete a variety of choices, versus just a week by week log. I feel that the log does help to hold students accountable for what they do each day, as I take time over the weekend to look at their log and comment, or take notes, as needed.

Moving forward as I continue to offer choices in Reading Workshop I would also like to build a more concrete plan for how I meet and work with my students on their reading skills and abilities. I have read the CAFÉ book and would like to implement some of those ideas, not that I am confident in how to offer choices and manage my classroom as a group of independent readers.

Teaching is a never ending process of learning new things, trying new things, and finding great ways to motivate your learners and help them be successful!