A guided reading lesson and a faux pas

  

Yesterday, I was transported back to working with children...for twenty minutes. It went something like this:

I pulled out a bucket first.

Then, I asked the children (all newly minted incoming second graders) what they thought we would read about...."the beach?" "sand" "finding sea shells?" Ahhhh, that led to the next item....

Enough information? No, not yet. I warned them that the next thing might be a little scary........

 Yikes! What is that?! "A scorpion?" (We definitely live in the Texas hill country.) "A crab?" " A lobsterd?"
No, not a scorpion, a crab or a lobster.  One more thing might help and I showed them something like this...

"Ummmm, it's a lobsterd house?" (Sorry, I thought lobsterd was too cute.)
No, lobsters have their own but someone doesn't.....




  Aaaaaah! Now we know...Hermit Crab!

We went on to check out the guiding questions on the back of the book....to differentiate between fiction and non fiction.....and I introduced new vocabulary like marine....nocturnal....(which they already knew and I was so jazzed at that!) and pincers and calcium. That led to a review of the " c followed by e,i or y is soft and makes the s sound". Then came my gaffe....marine. Normally a vowel consonant e means the e is silent and the vowel says it's name...which I pointed out...except, marine is a rule breaker because it's a french word. Well, dang. Maybe in french the i says e? No, it doesn't there either. Oh well, we moved on after I corrected myself and got into silent reading while I went around to listen to each child individually.

Observing one little guy felt like a trip back in time to my daughter's early elementary years. Some reversals and many guesses. As an avid reader, I want ALL children to look to books as great adventures, not huge obstacles to wade through. He's at a great school though and I know he'll get (probably already is) the interventions he needs to be a fluent reader.

The very brief extension activity was to pass out baggies with foam stickers, a shell, photos of hermit crabs and a foam "post card" after discussing the title Hermit Crabs: Robbers of the Deep, having them come up with a new title. Over way too soon.

Normally, I would have had multiple opportunities to observe and assess my students reading levels, aptitudes and interests. For this time, I just went with a thematic book based on the fact that it's summer. A great website for downloading leveled books (by grade, ex: this was 1.4) all the way up into high school, I recommend http://www.learningisland.org/  .   A great way to expand your classroom library and provide for those students whose level is behind or beyond the grade level they're in.