Tuesday, September 16, 2008

when guided reading turns into 20 minutes of agony

maybe it was my book choice today, maybe it was my book introduction, but guided reading made me want to hit my head into a wall. i could feel my teeth grinding, my breath shortening, my muscles tightening. the desire to just explode, "are you even looking at the words? how could the word I possibly be the word look? Does that possibly make sense?"
of course, exploding on a guided reading group would be the opposite of a solution. i could tell that my kiddos were reading my frustration as hard as i tried to keep it hidden and were responding in their own frustrated ways.
it's a vicious cycle of me being frustrated, making them frustrated, making me more frustrated, making them more frustrated, continuing to wind itself up inside me.
deep breaths.
if only i'd stopped the group, pulled the books and said, "oops! my mistake. i took the wrong book. i'll get a better one tomorrow!" i think we'd all be in a lot less pain right now.

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