Classroom Close Up: Guided Reading with Jenna: Overview (with Jenna Ogier)

[01:00:07.12]

Jenna: Well, for me, Guided Reading is probably one of the most important times of the day.

"I'm going to start reading first, and then I'm going to call on some of you. It says 'It was the beginning of autumn when Sodako..' "

Guided Reading is meeting with the teacher to get explicit instruction to help them grow in their reading levels. So, teaching strategies and skills that those students explicitly need.

Student: " 'He knew I hard work. I...he knew how hard I worked on my homework.' "

Jenna: "Good job. I like how April, she swapped the words right there, but then when she kept on reading, it didn't make sense, so she went back and she made it make sense. Good. Good readers do that."

"Thank you scholars.."

I love it because I'm pulling groups of scholars, and they're grouped according to reading level. And, so that way I can like, directly meet their needs. And, then the rest of the students are doing Reader's Workshop, and independently practicing various skills.

Student: "Re...can you can help me out with this word?"

Student: "Which word?"

Student: "That one."

Student: "Recognize."

Jenna: And, so, It's just, feels for me like a really nice time to meet like, all the needs of my students.

Guided Reading - generally, that starts with a reading mini-lesson, and that could be on a reading strategy or skill and it also could be on like, teaching a workstation. So, for today, it was teaching you know, the fluency workstation.

"Why is fluency important? Why is it important to have a fluency workstation, if we wanna be good readers?"

Student: "If you don't have fluency, you will read like a, um, robot."

Jenna: "So, you'll read like..."

So, I think there's like a lot of buy in when I'm introducing reading workstations and like, why is the work that we're doing so important?

"What Julianna's going to help me do is I can be the reader, and Julianna, you can be..."

I model it with another student, so it's super clear about what should it look like, when I'm at this workstation, and then we practice that.

"Go ahead and press start, OK? OK. 'Everyday in places around the world...' "

And then once I see that scholars are taking responsibility, and know how to use that workstation, we keep on adding more and more. And, then throughout the year, they're constantly shifting and changing according to the needs of the students.

"OK, scholars, when I say 'Go!', you're gonna take out your blue classwork folders, OK? Go!"

So, after the mini-lesson, they all transition to their seats to immediately begin independently practicing skills that I've just taught. And, then once I see that the class is in that mode, then I know, OK, I'm ready to pull the first guided reading group.

"So, your assignment was to read Chapter 2, and I asked you guys some questions about it. And, specifically we've been working on main problem, right? Identifying problems that we see in a story."

S, during Guided Reading, kinda of two things are happening, one is I'm pulling groups of scholars to directly meet their needs, and then the rest of the students are rotating in reader's workstations and working independently while the teacher is meeting with those Guided Reading groups.

The hardest part, I think it's really being able to manage 31 students, who are working independently without me. And, so, all of those procedures and systems were explicitly taught and practiced.

" 'She showed the back of the paper to...' "

It's definitely challenging, but I love it. I try and remind my students every, single day, there is a really important reason of why we're here. And, they know. They're like "Yeah, its, it's to be somebody." And, I think that's...they get it.

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