Guiding Readers- Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is titled "Guiding Emergent Readers"





This is a great chapter for me, as a first grade teacher. I know we've all just wrapped up our school year and as I was reading the list of things emergent readers do it had me thinking about how some of my kids had really come a long way!

A couple of key points I found to be important when working with emergent readers:

  • Keep in mind it may not always be best to have students make predictions based on the cover of the book. This is because the discussion tends to wander into stories about completely unrelated topics. 
  • "Walking" through the book is an important strategy for these students. It helps them understand the structure of the book and later helps with sequencing. It helps students remember key words they hear in the introduction to the book as well.
  • Echo reading is very important for emergent readers because they don't yet have all the skills needed to sound out words by themselves successfully all of the time.
  • Remember to praise kiddos for using strategies! - Sometimes we get so involved in our time crunch as teachers that we forget this one.
On page 36 there is a great list of activities you can do with your students listed by different areas: working with sounds, working with letters and words, working with books, etc.

I'm a huge advocate of having a set routine in class. My students know what the routine is for each subject area, especially in reading. In my district we use the Daily 5 program. All of the information I'm gathering from the book so far works great with Daily 5!

Page 43 has a great chart on reading and writing connections for emergent readers. It's perfect to share with parents in a parent conference. It is very simple and parents would easily see where their child is and what progress they can look forward to seeing.

One great activity for emergent readers is creating class books. I just posted on Teaching Blog Addict about a great tool I found that you could use to publish class books online!

If you've just started reading the book--no worries! 
Chapter 1 was hosted by Think, Wonder, Teach
Chapter 2 was hosted by Leading and Reading AND by Tori's Teacher Tips

The entire schedule for the book study is with our fabulous leader in the study, Beth, from Thinking of Teaching


5 comments:

  1. I love the things I'm learning from the book studies going around!
    Blessings,

    Jessica Stanford
    Mrs. Stanford's Class
    I could use your help! Check out my latest post ♥

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  2. I love hearing this chapter from a first grade teacher's point of view. I teach fifth and I thought the same thing, "WOW, look how far they come!" I love that you say this fits right in with the Daily 5 because that's something I wanted to implement this year.

    Thank you!

    Sabra
    Teaching with a Touch of Twang

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  3. Very informative- Thanks!
    Staci

    ☞Go NuTTY with ME!

    misssquirrels@yahoo.com

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  4. Jenn, This is a great post! I am so glad that you joined up to co-host. It's great to see things from the perspective of a teacher in grade 1...as I have never been with the little ones. I really learned a lot from what you considered important from this chapter. Thanks.
    Beth
    Thinking of Teaching

    ReplyDelete