How do you meet with your groups? I have seen different ways and tried different ways but I'm looking for a more set way for next year on. One way is meeting with groups the same day each week. For example Monday: Blue group Yellow Group Tuesday: Red Group Orange Group Wednesday Blue Group Yellow Group Purple Group Thursday: Red Group Orange Group Friday: Blue Group Yellow Group Purple Group Or, do you do the more random way of sitting at the table and calling groups as you feel you need to see them. Also is this also how you organize your centers so that one child is left in the center while the other others are in guided reading? I've tried having it by group but you know sometimes you have to change center groups because some kids just don't get along or get along too much, but you can't really change guided reading groups unless a child moves up a level. ONE MORE THING I think as this is my first year I don't feel I moved the kids up like I should. I finally had a method of timing them for a minute and if they read 60 or more words I moved them up a level but I was moving them as a group rather than sometimes one child. Because I may have 3 that can move up and two that needed to stay but then that meant redoing the groups all over again. That's just something that I struggled with.. Any suggestions would help Thanks! Thanks
I struggled with this as well. I definitely did better with a set schedule. It was WAY too easy to just "take a minute to get this ready or finish this test" etc. I'm still working on it as well, but I have a schedule and a running record form that I can share if you would like to see it. I tried for a brief while to have one "rotation" be with me. I found it impossible to keep up with since some kids moved groups every week. I did find an easier solution to keeping the "read with teacher" station with the daily 5 but it isn't perfect. I did have to keep "calling out" my students names for strategy groups because the students whizzed right through the groups sometimes. The strategy groups are usually only 7-10 minutes so they still get at least 10 minutes of their 20 minute rotations. I choose a student every group meeting to complete a running record on. I use this information to decide if a student needs to enter a strategy group or go up a reading level. Kids "blend" together during group and without a running record, sometimes it is difficult to catch simple mistakes that a student is making. I would be happy to share my daily five rotation, schedule adn running record form with you if want it. Just PM me with your email address.
