- Guided Reading Organizer: Using a drawer organizer to organize myself for guided reading lessons. It's so simple and makes everything available quickly because I can look down and see where everything is that I need. At the moment I took the picture it was actually a bit disorganized because a group had just ended, but you get the idea. Highlighter tape, magnet tape, markers, scissors for cut up sentences and word study, 'wh' question dice, index cards, highlighter, erasers, magnetic letters, pencils- everything I need for the group can be kept here so I can easily grab it. My reading groups for students with intellectual disabilities often have more 'stuff' than typical guided reading groups so this has been extremely helpful, especially when something arises that I didn't plan for.
2. Help Wanted Signs:
3. Sticky Note Stars to give non-verbal praise-
I placed a sticky note on the table in front of each reader and told them that every time I heard them read a word with an ending correctly I would put a little star on their note. The stars give the opportunity to give positive non-verbal feedback so that I'm not interrupting the flow of their book to say, "nice job reading that ending", but still letting them know they are on the right track. Like magic, suddenly the biggest ending-skippers were reading their endings. One boy even marked his own endings (he put a check to differentiate between my stars). We used the sticky notes for about a week before fading them away. I am still hearing them emphasize the endings of the words.
In another reading group with students that all happen to have ADHD I used the sticky-note system for simply giving stars when they were reading quietly to themselves. The group had gotten a bit talkative and off track. They'd start off commenting on something they read in the book and then before I knew it they were all comparing the book to a video game, then talking about the video games they were going to play after school, then talking about what else they would do after school, and suddenly I'd lost them. This usually happened a sentence or two into any new book and took a lot of work and wasted instructional time to get them back on track. Again, the stars on the sticky notes gave them non-verbal feedback that I was impressed with how they were working without interrupting their reading. And again, it worked like magic. They were intentionally more focused on their reading, while only occasionally glancing at their sticky note to see how they were doing.
I love this because there is virtually no prep to this system, it communicates exactly what I expect the students to do and provides positive feedback for them that doesn't interrupt their workflow. The kids themselves seemed to love it. All three groups would take their sticky notes with them at the end of the group and I've since found the sticky notes being collected in the corners of desks where their owners can pull them out and reflect on their hard work.
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