Independent Work During Guided Reading

It's Friday!!!!  Yay!  Tomorrow I am going to see Cathy Ribgy perform in "Peter Pan" with my sister.  I can't wait!  We were o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d with the Mary Martin "Peter Pan" movie as kids and, last year for Christmas, she gave me the Mary Martin soundtrack and I gave her tickets for this show... so we were totally in sync with our childhood!

Anywho... I wanted to pop in today to share with you how I manage the independent work my students must do during guided reading.

This is not to say what they are doing while I am doing guided reading, because the answer to that is DAILY FIVE.

This is what my reading groups are doing because I do often give them reading assignments that they must complete on their own during the week so that we can talk about them when we meet.  It's REALLY hard sometimes because my groups in the two classes I teach are very different as far as skills and abilities go... each class has 5 groups and all groups in all classes are doing something just a little bit different.  So, I don't always remember to remind them to get their independent reading and things done.

And this was born:

Not all of my groups have independent things they have to do, but the ones that do have a little slip and the kiddos know to check this and be sure they are getting their things done.

It's right in the back of my room, where they check every day to see if I'm meeting with them for Daily Five, so they all see it and it's a great reminder!

In the beginning of the year, I had three pocket charts here and kids physically made Daily Five choices every day.  By now, they are responsible enough to just mark their choices off on their check-sheet each day and we don't do physical choices in the chart anymore.  The two papers on either side of the chart are my weekly group schedules so kids can check and see when I am meeting with their group.

These groups don't change a whole lot.  They are leveled groups where we read like texts at a common level.  When I do skill or strategy work and someone in the group doesn't need it, they get a bonus round of Daily Five... which they love!

Hope that gives you an idea for a quick and easy way to help your students remember what they need to do and when!

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