Reading Practise Intensive Day 4: Small Group Reading Instruction

 Another great day of learning in RPI today. Our focus this time was about small group reading instructions, and giving multiple options and opportunities to add to our explicit teaching time. 

There were many things that stood out to me - first one being reading comprehension is a highly valued learning outcome, and we need to find strategic actions for our learners to process complex texts. This can help me to think of my teaching, and what I give my learners not only in our explicit instructional group, but also during their follow up. I need to think about what would be useful but not overwhelming, and if it is overwhelming, what I can do to break it down for my learners to still gain access to this skill.

Something else that stood out to me was when I am teaching small groups, the Fountas & Pinnell disgram is a great place to start. 

If I am teaching the most important skill (L.Is), everything else should come if I am being explicit. I also saw that what would be my typical was to run my small group instruction could be changed up. For example, I usually get my learners to read independently and then we can have our discussions. I could activate prior knowledge, look at unknown vocabulary and give them multiple opportunities of learning before the text is even read. By doing this, it also helps give learners context to a text they may know nothing about, especially if we are having discussions prior to reading texts.

From here, we watched Elena Terekhina from Glen Taylor School run a lesson using this model. We were given a transcript where we had to use the following labels: prompting, sharing, affirming.

This interactions bank will help me to think about how much discussion I am involved in, as well as making sure I am activating prior knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and text information. Definitely something I will keep in mind when planning for my smaller groups.

We also spoke about observations. As a teacher, I quite often observe skills and completion of tasks. I don't check in on their fluency as much as I can be. Something I can use is a LtR (Listening to Reading) or a blank Running Records sheet. We looked at a Fluency Scale, different for teachers and learners. Not only can teachers mark on a rubric where we think our learners sit, learners can do self-reflections, or buddy reflections. I will also be taking a look at Rob Wiseman's Boredometre, which I think will be a fun reflection that my learners will be excited to use.

This lesson was very interesting, and I am looking forward to see what aspects will be integrated in my Literacy Programme!