The Next Step Chapter 4: Early Guided Reading

This is where I am most comfortable!!!  I feel most of the kids I work with are at this level till around February / March.  Since I didn't see any questions for this chapter I will once again use the Share 2 Approach.  

2 Things I learned (okay more than two):

• The importance of self-monitoring, how it lays the foundation for comprehension.  
• That teaching children to think about the story, check the picture and make sure what they are reading makes sense will lead them to comprehension in a natural way.
• The importance of teaching children to read and write the sight words.  

2 Questions I still have:

• When previewing the book in a picture walk I have difficulty having my readers focus on the pictures and not the words.  They automatically start trying to read the story.  How can I help them with is?  Is it even really an issue?
• When selecting examples from the story for teaching points do we use ones specific students have made or one we have found and planned beforehand? 

2 Books:

I am actually going to have more than two because I had a hard time picking just 2.  I know we often feel like we don't know what books to use during our lessons and sometimes find the provided leveled readers to be boring.  Well there is an easy solution to that... Scholastic Book Wizard. You can type in the title of any book you have or search by desired level.  I thought I would look up some picture books I have multiple copies of just to see what level they are at...   

• The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, Level I since I read this the first week of school I was happy to see it is a level I.  
• David Goes to School by David Shannon Level  F
• Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann Level D
• It Looked Like Split Milk by Charles E Shaw Level E 

My favorite word study activity has to be the sound boxes.  I feel like it really helps learn how to stretch their words and they can apply this to all their writing.  It also helps me see what sounds they are hearing. 

Some of the resources I use for these lessons come from: 

• Lesson Plan SOS Becoming a Guided Reading Guru

• Reagan Tunstall's 




• For my guided writing or guided reading journals I use Amy Lemons  

Next up Chapter 5 and I'll be caught up for about a day :/

Don't forget to read what others posted on Maria's blog the linky is close but you can still read how other run their early guided reading groups.