Topic: Teacher Tip Tuesday

When forming LLI groups, children do not always fall neatly into just the right number of groups. After all, they are individuals who cannot be defined by “reading level.”

You may be sharing guided reading texts with a team of fellow teachers. If so, consider the following tips and ideas for coordinating the use of the texts and accompanying lessons.

Book clubs can take place anywhere in your classroom where there is room for small groups of children to sit, either in a circle of chairs or in a circle on the floor, and discuss books together.

The following are some guiding principles that may help you get more power in your teaching.

Many of your lessons on management, skills, strategies, and literary analysis will flow from observations you make during interactive read-aloud and conferring with children during independent reading.

When you present phonics and word study lessons, you will need a pocket chart; picture, letter, and word cards; and chart paper.

Your guided reading area is best located in an area of the classroom that accommodates a table large enough to seat 4-6 children and yourself.

Interactive read-aloud takes place in the whole-class meeting area of your classroom.

As you arrange your classroom for shared reading, be sure to accommodate children so that every child can see the big book or chart. Store texts and tools nearby for easy access.

Consider the following suggestions as you arrange your classroom for independent reading:

There are many opportunities throughout Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ to engage parents and caregivers.

In order to get an accurate assessment using the Benchmark Assessment System it's important that the student not have already read any of the books.

We must remember that children, especially young children, learn through play. Play enhances language and literacy learning.

Here are some other considerations for selecting guided reading texts for intermediate/middle-level readers.

A key to an efficient conference is being organized, knowing where to begin the assessment, and moving the assessment along at a good pace. Here are some tips for conducting an assessment conference efficiently.

We need to find ways to cope with the demands of the testing environment and still help our students have happy, productive, and satisfying literacy experiences.

While the best measure of students’ ability is to observe them while reading continuous text, you can also learn much about their word-solving strategies by having them read individual words.

Every teacher needs tools to support their instruction. In shared reading, the following key tools will be helpful to support your lesson.