Schedule & Components
What days do you lead Read Alouds?
Tuesday&Thursday
Name one book you've done a read aloud of.
answers vary
How do you plan for centers?
answers vary
It's a read aloud day but you fell behind in your prep time and now you don't have time to make a poster with cool words, SSB qualities and the learning objective. What should you prioritize and how should you resolve the challenge?
Plan to write cool words on the whiteboard when you get into class or as you read them in the story. Modify your poster to only include the cool words and talk the students through the SSB Qualities and Learning Objective. Ask your peers if they did the book recently and if you can have their poster if they still have it. Coordinate with them in the future to share posters.
Which days are centers?
Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Around the World
Youth are divided into small groups (3-5) and rotate through different literacy based activities for 1 hour.
During centers, you have a few girls who really don't want to work together. They keep whining and complaining that they want to be moved to another group with their friends.
Use empathy to share you understand how they feel and why they're upset while telling them that whining and complaining is not how they get heard in our classroom. Invite them to write a letter or draw a picture of how they'd like to see things change. Consider your grouping strategies again before the next week of centers.
When do you implement Guided Reading?
Wednesdays before Centers (30mins)
Read the lesson plan, read the book, make modifications, make posters, make copies and/or an example of the extension activity, add post it notes for during reading, etc.
What kinds of literacy skills do youth learn in centers?
phonics, letters, reading fluency, decoding words, parts of speech, writing
During read aloud your students have a hard time keeping their hands to themselves. They're always touching someone's hair or playing a game with a neighbor. You have to stop reading several times to intervene.
Set new group agreements for the carpet and clip up often for preferred behaviors. Use a signal or a 'look' that reminds youth of the expectation non-verbally (point at the GA poster, put your own hands in your lap, furrow your eyebrows-exaggerate your facial expression). Assign carpet squares, teach sitting positions that are allowed so everyone has space, use chairs or sit at desks if appropriate, designate a secret someone who's behavior is tied to a class prize, etc.
How long are we expected to facilitate literacy activities everyday?
1 hour
Give an example of an extension activity for a read aloud lesson
answers vary (worksheet, art project, retelling the story, posters/charting, etc.)
What are your expectations or guidelines for centers?
Stay with your group. Ask 3 before me. Start right away and work the whole time. Voice levels 0 or 1. Clean up when your done.
You chose a really fun book for your read aloud this week, but when you look at the lesson plan you are missing some materials for the extension activity. What do you do?
Modify the extension activity, look in the binder for ext. activities for any book or do a google search of the book title and see what others have done. Ask a peer who read the book before you and see what they did, etc.
Name one other component of literacy that we are not implementing right now.
Shared Reading, Reader's Theater, Arts & Literacy (summer)
What are the components of the read aloud?
Introducing the story with the author, title, and brief description of the story
Cools Words
SSB quality
Objective
Reading the story
Think Pair-Share, Think Aloud Questions
Extension Activity
Reflection
How do you decide ho to group youth for centers?
Personalities/Group Dynamics, Reading Levels
Your kids have been taking forever to get into class, you had to practice lining up 3 times, and had to go back to clean snack up after the coordinator said you left your area a mess. As a result, you only have 30mins in class to do centers, what should you do next?
Do centers for 30mins or do a guided reading activity with the whole group if it is Wednesday. Depending on what else is in your schedule, you might have time to make up the other 30mins of literacy with support from your coordinator.