Today's Reading Group Experience-- POSITIVE!

Two major things made reading groups today an even better experience. One, I'm sad to say, was the absence of 5 students, 4 of which are some of my more active and off-task students, AND...I had help today. An EA was able to be in my group all day because her student wasn't there today. So today's experience was REALLY good. Whew. That's the first time I've felt like that. I was able to work with my small groups, some of which were significantly smaller because of the absentees.

Once again, I was very clear with each student about what they were to do during the independent study time. Maybe this is just getting easier because they are starting to get used to it. I certainly hope so.

My advanced group went with the EA. I gave her the book they were studying, which is a high interest non-fiction text about space stations. They read the book, discussed and filled in a chart related to the space stations described.

My group 2 had finished a KWL chart last week when I let them look at a book about Rivers. Today, we discussed the table of contents and learned that we can look at the chapter titles and read only what we wanted to. So, we read those chapters that related to the questions we were wondering about.

Group 3 kids today were much calmer, due to the absense of 2 students who are so very boistrous. They were so confident in their reading and sight word drill. It was fun to be with them today.

Group 4 kids were only half there. They are the lowest group and I was so happy to be able to spend it with just the two that were there. I was able to listen to each one read, do a further lesson on the sight words and introduce two more: yes and no. They quite enjoyed it and are getting so very confident in their reading.

I even had time to take some pictures of the students as they worked without my direct supervision on paired hangman games using the word wall words, reading independently and doing a phonics worksheet about long vowel sounds.

Now my question is, how can I repeat that, even with all the students there? How can I continue to foster this environment of independence, quieter work and focus?