Five for Friday - 8/21/15

I was just about done writing this post on Friday when my internet suddenly went out. It was finally fixed this morning. Two days without internet was unnerving. Anyway, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday--two days late.

1. I finally reached the first TpT milestone! It took a little over two years and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears...but I did it!

2. I'm so excited for the new school year! While I'll still be teaching reading intervention, part of my time will be spent as the literacy coach for lower elementary. I will be coaching and supporting teachers in all areas of literacy, but will be targeting Guided Reading. Before I begin coaching in that, I will spend the first few weeks supporting the teachers as they set their routines with literacy centers or work stations. Here are a couple books I've been using as a point of reference:

3. I had the opportunity to lead a 3-hour literacy workshop at my school. I was so nervous! I was worried the teachers would be bored or wouldn't find any of it meaningful. However, it went better than I thought it would. The teachers seemed really engaged and I got a lot of positive feedback.

Our school uses a very specific letter-sound correspondence and blending strategy that is a Direction Instruction model adapted from SRA Mastery. Here are some of the teachers practicing:

We also discussed the importance of using cooperative learning structures. Too often we assume students know how to talk to each other. We, as teachers, need to provide the students ample opportunities to interact with each other. One of my favorite cooperative learning structures is called Rally Robin. I played the video below to the teachers to show how I first teach Rally Robin to my students.

4. No matter how much I try, I never seem to be 100% satisfied with my classroom library. This year, I am sticking with sorting my books by guided reading level, but I also added the Lexile to each label on the book.

The Lexile really helps especially since students' comprehension levels vary so much. For example, I could have two children reading at a level H, but one child may struggle with comprehension more than the other. So I would give that child a level H book with a lower Lexile. The other student would read a level H book, but with a higher Lexile.

5. My school is bursting at the seams! Our enrollment increases every year and we are at capacity. Thank goodness we are breaking ground in a few weeks for our school's new location for the 2016-2017 school year. Because we lack space, I no longer have a classroom for my intervention groups. I will have to make-do with empty classrooms and hallway space this year. It will be a challenge, but the teachers have been asked to be as understanding and as flexible as possible this year. After all, it's just one more year and then we will have a brand new school all to ourselves. Anyway, I don't have my own classroom this year, but I want to show how talented my colleagues are. Their doors look absolutely amazing!

Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting Five for Friday!

Happy new school year!


Mai