Getting ready for 2021: Reading

This is a post which so many of you have asked for. I tossed up about actually ever writing this because of how teaching and running a reading programme can be so different. Different teachers run things their own way and it depends on the type of reading approach your school follows. 
It has taken me awhile to fine tune my reading programme, especially guided reading. I love how it is set up currently and really felt a huge success in 2020 with trialling some new options with my kiddies. ​

I have used Daily 5 for four years now and use it as a basis for my programme. The aspects that are involved are read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing and listen to reading. I find that all five of these are fundamental parts to practice and learn in reading time, with students building key skills while completing these. I also have a few other rotations included of other things like teacher time, work on ipad, word wall, free play, playdough, lego and crafts. These all make up important aspects of my programme. 
I first began with Daily 5 in 2017 - I had done the research, read the book, scoped for resources before implementing it 'the right way'. It was such a success and since then I have implemented a lot of student agency based choices which came from the daily 5 implementation. 

I wrote a blog post in 2019 on how I set up Daily 5 in my classroom. This has links to resources and a slidedeck I created for PLD and assistance for new teachers looking to get into Daily 5. Find the link to the slides here. 

Read more here

My reading tumble is more of a choice board now where students can choose what they would like to do in reading time as long as they cross it off on their card. This is to create ownership over their choices and be held accountable for the choices they make in class too. They love being able to choose what they want to do and I love seeing them do it! 

So teaching guided reading is obviously something that is fine tuned to each teacher so if there is something I share in this that you disagree with - that is totally fine. Remember this is my interpretation of teaching and how I complete guided reading with my students. 
​Some points to note:

• I group based on reading level or goals e.g. gold level, stage 2 for decodables 
• I do not to round robin reading
• I run my high readers (green and above) different to my new readers - who are using decodables and learning to read
• For my littles, there is a huge focus on sounds, blending and segmenting before actual reading
• I have explicit follow up activities which match to their learning to further support the reading time with the teacher

I hope this has helped unpack a little on how reading is run in my classroom. Obviously things might be different this year with my newbies but I know I will be doing Daily 5 again in a basic tumble to begin the year. If you have any questions about how I run reading please get in contact [email protected] or send me a message over facebook or instagram.