Book Madness

My 2nd grade students loved Book Madness! I watched my Instagram blow up with teachers doing this, and I wanted to join the bandwagon. We had a blast listening to our stories. I got the banner from Second Grade Sizzle and the tournament headings from Brown Bag Teacher. Both FREE!  A wonderful teacher created the book headings and opinion writing template. I had to switch out a couple of books, but it was easy to do. Leave me a comment and I will email them to you.

  I wanted to do my Book Madness the same time with NCAA's March Madness. It's easy to read picture books for this tournament. It's best you start creating your list at the beginning of the school year with chapter books if you want to start with Sweet 16. You can start with eight books for the Elite 8. My Book Madness was easier to coincide with March Madness since I used picture books.

  Students votes counted as points. So, the book with the most points won the tourney.  My second graders loved the suspense as to which book had the most points.  The book that won by one point was the Buzzer Beater Book! Here's a tip: I found my books online and decided to save my voice. There are many great read alouds on www.youtube.com and www.storylineonline.net   I did read the champion book aloud on my own! Book Champion...(drumroll)...Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems!  

    Enjoy!

Organizing my guided reading groups

Here's another tweak from Pinterest. Organizing and keeping track of your reading groups with two simple tools. Check out What the Teacher Wants for more details on how she uses her file folder. 

You can get as creative as you want! I just simply printed on pretty paper and used these labels for my reading levels. Laminate the file folder. I printed and laminated students' names on card stock.  This year, I used laminated heart shaped die cuts for their names. I added adhesive putty so that I can move my students' names from level to level after assessing them with running records. You can easily erase the levels and rewrite on your choice of post it labels. 

Teachers use several different ways to keep track of their anecdotal notes on each student.  One of the best ways are our index cards with a ring to hold them together. I love washi tapes and decided to washi mine up! 

I colored coded my reading groups based on their reading levels. 

 

And towards the back of my stack ~ a sheet of colorful letters! 

I am better organized with these two tools!  Happy Guided Reading! 

Yummy Reading Strategies!

This yummy book is a great resource for reading strategies! It is worth every penny to have in your reading toolbox.  I will show you some of its yumminess! 
The author, Jennifer Serravallo, has collected 300 reading strategies to fit every reading level. She has set them up into thirteen goals starting at pre-emergent to improving writing about reading. She has color-coded each goal.

 For each reading strategy she offers you different ways to understand the strategy so that you can implement it right away.  She gives you a teaching tip to help you understand how to use the strategy or a lesson language to show you how she might explain or demonstrate it to students. Serravallo provides prompts to help you scaffold during student practice.  There is a section she devotes to who the strategy is for. I love this part! In the beginning of the book she teaches you how to use your running records to determine your students goals and strategies to use. I love how she lets you know what reading levels the strategies will work for best. 

Now, for the yummy part of this book! The visuals in this book are to die for! They are both colorful and aspiring! Aspiring because I CAN DO THIS! I can teach the strategy and create anchor charts and tools using the examples. I am a better reading teacher because of this! 

You can't go wrong with this book!  Purchase one for yourself on Amazon or perhaps your school can purchase a copy to share. 
There is a great book study from a group of teacher bloggers who call themselves the Reading Strategies Crew. Each teacher blogger did one goal for their book study. I have linked the first book study by literacylovinggals. She begins with a  more detail description of the first goal. You will then follow the links to the next goal. 
The Reading Strategies Book works well with my Reading Workshop and Daily 5.  I love this book and all its yumminess! 
Enjoy! 

Monitoring Comprehension

Have you ever found yourself thinking of something else while reading? I do this all the time! I especially do this when I am reading resource books. I find myself wondering how to bake a wedding cake (see previous post). Monitoring Comprehension is one of our reading strategies to help students understand and remember what they are reading. You can read more from Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis. I created a simple template for my second graders using the Read, Write, and TalK (p.82). This is their favorite one because, socially, they love to talk! Students read and record their thoughts on the sheet. I wanted them to think of four events that they wanted to share with others. The fun part is talking to their peers about what they are reading. Monitoring comprehension helps students stay on top of what they are reading. The Read, Write, and Talk allows them to build their social skills. Click Here to Download