Thursday, June 30, 2011

Literacy Organization Ideas

I have been thinking a lot about how I will organize my (90 min.) literacy block next year and I would love your feedback and ideas. As I mentioned in another post my grade level will be switching students for Language Arts (based on DRA scores) so that reading groups can be more homogeneous in ability level. With only 90 minutes to teach reading, writing, and transition not only between stations but between classes, I want to make sure that I am maximizing on the time I have.

I know I definitely want to use aspects from The Daily 5 and CAFE programs, but I know I won't be able to do them in their entirety or I wouldn't get to any curriculum. So, I plan on teaching my reading and writing curriculum in 15 minute mini-lessons everyday.

I am doing "The FACE of a Reader" instead of "The CAFE Menu"- I just switched the letters around because I think "FACE" is cuter. Anyway, instead of introducing a new FACE strategy everyday like suggested in the book, I will introduce one (mayyybbe two) strategies a week. I will introduce the new strategy whole group during Monday's reading mini-lesson. I will reinforce, remediate, and extend the strategy as needed throughout guided reading groups that week. I think that introducing a new strategy everyday might be too much for my kiddos with all of the other things they have to learn as well. Plus, spending a week on a strategy versus a day will ensure that they remember how to use the strategy and get practice using it.

Below is the schedule I will use (as of now).


Literacy Schedule

Writing Mini-Lesson15 min.Teacher: Teach Writing Curriculum
Guided Writing Group15 min.Teacher: Pull a small group (different group every day of the week) to:
  • Edit/Proof Writing
  • Model Lesson
  • Remediate/Extend Lesson
  • Create Shared Writings


Students: Write-to-Self at seat
Reading Mini-Lesson15 min.Teacher: Teach Reading Curriculum (Tue.-Fri.);
Introduce Weekly FACE (CAFE) Strategy (Mon.)
Guided Reading Group15 min.Teacher: Pull a guided reading group
Students: Daily 5 rotation
Guided Reading Group15 min.Teacher: Pull a guided reading group
Students: Daily 5 rotation
FACE Conferences15 min.Teacher: Pull a guided reading group and hold individual FACE (CAFE) student conferences. Other students in group read-to-self while waiting for conference.
Students: Daily 5 rotation
Since I am a new teacher I would love to hear any ideas you have about making this work. Thanks!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our district has a mandatory reading block only- no interruptions of 90 minutes and then an additional 30 min block - intervention time- no interruptions (we can't schedule anything else in this block of time- no specials etc. So in our 90 minute block we do our reading whole group lesson and then our work stations and guided reading groups. We are required to at least have 60 minutes for work stations/guided reading. The additional 30 minutes (which makes it 120 minutes reading block) is for our really struggling students. The other kids are working on things and we are required to work with those kiddos for another 30 min. I am not sure how CAFE works although I have thought about reading it and incorporating it into my routine. I like your idea of writer's workshop-- just not sure on the amt of time? As for transitions, check out my behavior and transitions post- I am planning on incorporating the music as transition cues.

If you have any questions, I'd be glad to help
Primary Connections
bkindyfl@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

I love how you switched the title to FACE! I have been doing mini-lessons for writing during my block as well. I have started to video tape some of my lessons so I can assign them to students if they miss a day or are having a hard time with the whole group lesson. Here is one of my lessons: http://luria-learning.blogspot.com/2011/04/soba-sentences.html

Sacha
www.luria-learning.blogspot.com

Mrs. Voss said...

I also do Face but my bulletin board... "Let's FACE it! We love reading!"