sentence of the week

Hi all! I've been busy this month working on grammar stuff. After seeing my cousin Mike at Easter (he's a High School English Teacher) and talking to him about the papers he was grading (we're always grading, aren't we?) we got to talking about Kelly Gallagher's Sentence of the Week, which may or may not be like the Mentor Sentences I've seen around the teaching blogosphere. Since then, I've been busy trying this out with our third graders, and it's been awesome!

Sentence of the Week is a strategy used for the purpose of having students construct knowledge about grammar and mechanics. The principle behind this is that we want to show students correct sentences (rather than incorrect sentences that you might find with Daily Oral Language (DOL) activities). Don't use those crazy, error-ridden sentences with your kiddos!

If you teach with a Writing Workshop model, you might be wondering how to make Grammar a more consistent part of your writing instruction - and this is perfect for that. Sentence of the Week is a 5-10 minute bit of instruction that happens daily, whether you are in the editing phase of the writing process or not.

Sentence of the week works on a five day cycle - you will stick to the same grammar pattern for five days. Following this, you can find a brief explanation of the first two days of the cycle...I'll be back later this week with the rest.

Day 1: Notice
Begin with three sentences that use the pattern you hope to teach. In this case, we were working on Possessive Nouns, so we wrote three pairs of sentences:

My mom has a dog.
My mom's dog is a Pug.

Miss Amenta has a pineapple hat.
Miss Amenta's pineapple hat makes her happy.

Damian has a fake mustache.
Damian's mustache looks real.

We began with the blue, pink, and red sentences. We wrote them about our kids and this particular class so they were more meaningful. First thing I did was read them to the students. Then, we asked students to turn and talk about what they notice. After, students shared out and we charted what they said:

I notice...
the pairs are alike - they are about the same topic
Should there be more commas?
apostrophe
It says what they have

As you can see, students were able to compare and contrast the sentences (one of Marzano's high yield strategies!) to construct meaning - they found the pattern (apostrophe and possession) and even though they could not name it academically, they were most certainly able to find it!

This little bit concluded day one.

Day 2: Imitate
We continued by sharing the academic vocabulary & meaning for what we were working on and three more examples:

You can find the teacher work in black ink. Then, the sentence in blue is the demonstration I did with our classroom teacher to model for the students how to imitate sentences, which is the next step they will complete. You can find teacher think aloud coded {like this.}

I said, "If I wanted to write a sentence with a Possessive Noun, I would first ask myself, 'Who is this sentence about?' Miss, Kriegl, who should we write a sentence about?"

She replied, "Mrs. Maldonado."

Then I asked her, "What does she own or have?"

She said, "A school."

I demonstrated, "Okay, then, Mrs. Maldonado {students, I'm starting my sentence with my person} 's {remember, I have to put the apostrophe s} So, Mrs. Maldonado's school {and then I just finish the sentence} is the best. Let's read it together."

All, "Mrs. Maldonado's school is the best."

Then I directed students, "With your partner, please imitate me, write a Possessive noun sentence. When you finish, hold your index card up, and I'll take it from you, and you can do another."

In pairs, students went on their way writing sentences. I collected them, and then added them to our list. You can find the student sentences in the picture above in pink. We continued to look for the pattern, and were also able to clarify a misconception, where a pair of kiddos wrote, "Ms. Kriegl owns Zach." (Side note: Zach is her fiancé!) We just reminded them of the pattern and then revised the sentence to make it correct.

All of that in just 15 minutes. Great conversation, great learning, awesome way to find trouble spots where students have misconceptions about the lesson at hand.

Because I don't want this post to get so long you don't read it, I'll be back later this week with another post to finish up the five day cycle of Sentence of the Week.

Has anyone used this as a grammar strategy? Please share your thoughts in the comments below! And be sure to check out the grammar presentation my colleagues Jennie, Amanda, and I put on last week in our district!

tribute to primary

This month, the #compelledtribe is sharing posts in tribute to a teacher of our choice. This prompt came at the perfect time, as a week or so ago, I had to help out with sub coverage in a first grade classroom. Today, I'd like to give tribute to all the primary teachers out there, who do such wonderful work each day!

I don't want to take anything away from intermediate, middle, and high school teachers - all of us work very hard to study and teach our content, build relationships with students, plan amazing lessons, and provide feedback to help our students grow. But have you ever spent a whole day in a primary classroom? More particularly, a kinder or a first grade classroom? Primary teaching isn't just singing songs and playing in centers. It's hard work that takes loads of planning, organization, and structure!

Primary teachers, you are a special bunch! Your students show up with a range of abilities in kinder and all grow in their learning in different ways. They are so small and can't really be independent for much time at all, so I'd like to recognize all the work that goes into planning engaging instruction for them.

Kinder and first grade teachers are the first official teachers (parents are first, #amIright?) of reading... very important work going on with this age range! In our literacy block, you teach your students to be independent with authentic activities so that you can be freed up to provide guided reading that meets each child's needs. You study and prepare lessons that are differentiated and really hit exactly what each child needs. You prepare word study within guided reading, and for explicit instruction of sight words. All of this is after you've  worked with books, and taken anecdotal notes on what the children can do. And all of that happens while the rest of your class works independently for 10-20 minutes at a time. Seriously, it's amazing work that you do!

Our Kinders are writing personal narratives, complete with pictures and labels, and making their way to sentences. Firsties are writing Teaching Books about all kinds of topics, books that are planned out in advance and polished beautifully. While their final drafts aren't perfect, each one is each child's best work, which will be added to a portfolio for reflection later. And don't forget about celebrations! Our writers always get to share their work with their peers, which really amps up their engagement!

And don't even get me started on math. I have no idea how you teach math conceptually children who are five and six, but you all know exactly how and deliver instruction to them in a meaningful way. Jamie Duncan, your passion and knowledge inspires me so much!

Not only all of this, but our Dual Language and Bilingual teachers do so in two languages as well! I know it takes time to plan and prepare for both languages, but building two languages is so important in recognizing the gifts that our students bring to our classrooms. Thank you for studying best practices and trying out new and modified ways of delivering instruction that will best support our learners. 

And academics aside, you do so much to support their social and emotional needs at this age - give them band-aids, wipe their tears, and tie their shoes. You use class pets for classroom management and give them a hug when they miss their parents. You help them learn the importance of taking turns, and sharing, and listening. You read them stories that they can "live through" so they can learn from them about compassion, empathy, and self-control. You build them up when they're down and also teach them important life lessons when they're not being their best selves. It's a short 9 months that you spend with your students, but your lessons and impressions are lasting.

It's February, a month celebrating love and friendship, and I simply adore the work you do each day. Thank you for your tireless dedication to our students...they are so lucky to have you!

Have you sent some love to a colleague lately? It's the perfect time to do so! Hit them up (I sound so middle school, don't I?) on Twitter, with a note in their mailbox, or a hug when you pass them in the hall. Lift others up, and your heart will be full along with them!

guided reading binder - take a peek!

I began teaching guided reading again, this time in first grade! It's been cool to get to know another of the five plans from Jan Richardson. Now that it's been a few weeks, my records have fleshed out and I wanted to share my binder with you!

Here it is in all it's glory --
I'd rather write a blog post about it than make a pretty cover :-)

On the inside...front and back pockets:

Inside back pocket
I know it's strange to start with the end, but there's not much to report there. Just saving some word study materials I haven't gotten to yet; more on word study a few paragraphs down...

Inside front pocket
I keep everything I need now in this pocket - this week's lesson plan, this week's anecdotal notes, word study activities I'm planning to do today or tomorrow, and standards based anecdotal notes.

Lesson Plans, from The Next Steps in Guided Reading:

Anecdotal Notes This form, created by my awesome colleague and friend, Christine. One side of notes covers one group of kids - their names are listed where that white paper is, and then a box for each day of the week.

Word Study Materials - this week we're doing some picture sorting by medial vowel:

Anecdotals by Standard are next. (They are the stack of index cards that are paper clipped together.) Right now we're working on questioning. I just recently learned about this from an awesome fourth grade teacher over at Irving. You keep a stack of cards per standard and then annotate when kids attempt to use that strategy. In this case, it's questioning, so I was able to record the questions (or statements) kids shared and then grade them against a Standards-Based Rubric (4: Exceeds Standard, 3: Meets, 2: Approaches, 1: Beginning). Throughout the week, I'll keep more records of this to get a bigger picture.

Child's name is what is under the pen.

In the Rings:
First, I have a few mini-anchor charts in plastic sleeves:

I made these to use to prompt the students about various skills we are working on, so when I am ready to do that work, I take these out for their reference. This little trick is another one that Christine taught me. She began doing this as she built her Tier 3 lesson plans using Jennifer Serravallo's new book: The Reading Strategies Book.

Next I have more anecdotal notes - using a calendar is another way to think about them:

I just began a 1:1 intervention with a student who needs to build her knowledge of letter names (this is also in Jan Richardson's Book!) Since I am only working 1:1, I wanted to use a calendar to take notes of observations across our time together, so I just grabbed this freebie online today to use.

Strategies and Skills by Level - this is another resource in the Richardson's book and just wanted a quick reference to keep handy. The front page you see are all the strategies and skills children need to master at level A, behind it I have a few more levels, too. This way, when I'm planning the word study component of guided reading, it's easy to figure out what I should do!

Archived Lesson Plans - After I'm done with a sheet of plans, I hang on to them here, newest on top as a record of the work we've done.

Next section is for sight words:

I have two groups, so I have two sets of these charts, but up top you list each child's name on top of the list, and then when you assess their sight words, you can make notes here of how they're doing. I put a check mark if they are able to spell it correctly, and a "P" if I had to prompt them for support to write the word. If I notice that more than one student needs prompting, then I go back and reteach the sight word in question.

The next section is for archived Anecdotal Notes:

I keep the current notes I'm working on in the front cover, but then, as I finish them, they get filed here. What I love about this system is that when I go to an RtI meeting or need to update a parent or teacher about a child, I have so much information to potentially share with them just by looking through my notes!

I'm getting better at taking anecdotals the longer I keep with them, but some days I don't write things, and other days I focus too much on one student. Sometimes I take notes on the group as a whole, other days not. These notes are waaaay better than I used to do as a novice last year, and I'm sure I'll keep on improving with them the longer I keep working on them.

Assessment Data is collected in the last part of my binder:

When I say Assessment Data, I just mean running records, which are all saved here. But, I keep an Assessment Summary on top so I can see trends at a glance. This form below is just for one student, and lists running record scores and notes for each week I test him.

You see that I include the date, guided reading level of the text, the genre (fiction or nonfiction), whether the running record was hot (meaning the child read the book already before) or cold (it was the first time with the text. Then I have scores for Words Per Minute (WPM) and number of errors (which I haven't been taking because I keep forgetting to bring the calculator), their accuracy percentage, comprehension score, and overall reading level (Independent, Instructional, or Frustration) notes. That circled letter on the end of the line is the level I want to test the child on the following week, that way I don't have to analyze the information again - just a way to make myself more efficient.

On the bottom of the form is a rubric for determining the level that is from Fountas and Pinnell's Benchmark Assessment System.

So, that's my binder! What's in yours?

Any ideas to enhance what I've already got going on?

Please leave your ideas in the comments!

getting cozy with Calkins

Good morning! Is anyone out there getting acquainted with the new Reading Units of Study from Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at The Teachers College? We are so lucky to use this curriculum in our school district, and so our teachers are beginning to orient themselves to the new units of study. In an effort to smooth things out, I've created a little cheat-cheat to figure it all out!

First, let's start with the books.

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: The Overview Book
This book does a really nice job acquainting the reader with the curriculum. In this book, you will learn more general information about Reading Workshop and the research and theory behind it. This book is also the source of this blog, as it directed me to what was most important to read as we begin instruction.

Reading Units of Study: The Lesson Plan Books

Each grade level's curriculum includes four spiral-bound units of study. Since I head fifth grade in my district, I'm going to share theirs:

1. Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes
2. Tackling Complexity: Moving Up Levels of Nonfiction
3. Argument and Advocacy: Researching Debatable Issues
4. Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbols

These four books are the meat and potatoes of the curriculum. Teachers will be reading these books day in and day out and using them for instruction.

Reading Pathways: The Assessment Book

This book is really a toolkit for reading assessment. In it teachers will find information about running records, bands of text complexity in both fiction and nonfiction, learning progressions of different standards across grade levels (think vertical alignment), performance assessments, and assessment tools.

If... Then... Curriculum: The Differentiation Book

This book has letters to teachers at each of the three intermediate grade levels. It offers a very broad overview of the year. Then, it gives alternate units of study that teachers and use if they need to modify the grade level given units of study.

Getting Started

Now that you know about the books, here are Calkins' recommendations for getting started in the Intermediate Grades. (Primary grade teachers, slightly different.) If you're like our teachers, you don't have time to read the whole first book of lesson plans, and in fact, Lucy doesn't even recommend that. Here's how you should begin:

1. Grab the first book of lesson plans that you are going to teach. At the beginning of each of these is An Orientation to the Unit. You can find this right after the acknowledgements. Read that first, and then read the first session of lesson plans.
2. Next grab Reading Pathways. Look up the Learning Progressions in the table of contents. Go to that section, pick one strand, and read the progression of work children do across the grade levels. This will help you see what students were expected to do before coming to your class, and also see the depth that you will take your teaching on each standard (for example, on Time, Plot, and Setting).
3. Now you're ready for the If... Then... Curriculum. In the very front of this book are letters: A Letter to Teachers of Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5. You'll want to read your letter to get a sense of the units you will be teaching this year.
4. If you're new to Reading Workshop, it would definitely help to skim through A Guide to the Reading Workshop.
5. Also, check out the online resources at Heinemann's website! You can find your access code in A Guide to the Reading Workshop book.

It seems like a lot to do, but it's just a little bit of reading here and a little bit of reading there. Hopefully this post clarifies the purpose of the books and where to begin!

Who else uses Reading Workshop? Any other tips to offer? Please leave a note in the comments if so!

summer blog party: word study tips

Good morning! I have kinda fallen off the map because my niece is visiting me in Chicago for the week, but she's still sleeping so I am taking a few moments to write up a post about Words Their Way for our focus today: Phonics and Phonemic Awareness. Seemed appropriate since my most popular post is about the five day plan for word study - check that one out here!

Today I'm going to share some tips and tricks for a flawless Word Study implementation. So off we go!

Assessment and Grouping: First things first, you'll need to figure out how to group your kiddos. You'll need to give the spelling test in the back of the Words Their Way book, and use the feature guide to determine the level each child will start at. Word study is great because it's not a right or wrong situation. The feature guide will help you see which phonics principles the children have mastered and not. My friend Carla has a great You Tube video on her blog that will touch on this assessment. See what it looks like by clicking here. 

As far as grouping - I recommend no more than three different groups within your classroom. As their teacher, you'll need to provide each group with instruction and materials to enhance their knowledge of phonetic principles, so if you create more than three groups, it's going to make your life really complicated. Keep it simple: Three groups or less!

Forget days of the week: Because you're going to be guiding three groups of kids through the word sorts, you're going to have to stagger the days that you meet with them so you're able to introduce the words to the kids when they begin their new sorts. (This, and many weeks have holidays which will throw everything off!) Perhaps the following chart might be what your plans would look like:

Remember, kids sort their words first thing every day (to build automaticity) and then go on to their other task. So if you notice June 22nd - the teacher is responsible for giving group 1 and introduction to their new words and possibly giving an assessment to group 2. Teacher would begin with group one and then meet with group 2.

Also: It would be a good idea to post some kind of chart with each day and the description of activities. Then, groups numbers can be on a clothespin (or something similar) and kids have a visual of what they will do for the day. I've been looking online for a picture and just can't seem to find one!

Teach routines: Kids have to be taught the routines and procedures for each of the days. So, give your whole class the same sort for a few cycles and focus on teaching kids what the routines look like. Teach them what each day in the cycle is all about - how you meet with the teacher on day 1, how to do the vocabulary activities on day 2 and the word hunting in their Just Right books on day 3. Once you do the routines two or three times, then you'll be ready to complicate things further (for the teacher!) with three different word sorts going on!

Don't assume: As the sorts and the rules become more difficult, your students will most certainly need instruction to understand the phonetic principles, highest group included. You want to make sure all kids in the group can say each word correctly for sorting purposes. It's imperative that the teacher meets with each group on Day 1 - in addition to word pronunciation, you also need to talk about word meanings. This doesn't have to be any big deal - the kids can attempt to sort first if you need to see another group first, and then when you meet with them, they can tell you what they have trouble with. But please, see each group when they are on Day 1 of the cycle!

Connect to your guided reading: It's pretty likely that your word study groups will be different than your guided reading groups, but that doesn't mean that you can't do a little word study investigation within your guided reading. If you know anything about Jan Richardson's plans, part of it includes about 4 minutes of word study. This is a great time to dictate words or sentences (using words from their word sort lists) to do a little assessment of what kids are mastering (or not!). This will give you information about how you can better support the kiddos during your word study time when you meet with groups, too!

I hope this was helpful! If you have ideas how I can enhance something here, I'd love to hear them! Also, feel free to leave a question if something is confusing. Just because it makes sense in my head doesn't mean it does in everyone else's!

I'm also discounting my Word Study Implementation Guide by 50%! Check that out here!

Do you have some great tips and tricks for phonemic awareness or phonics? Be sure to link up with us and share them!

sunday letters

WRITE your letters on Sunday.

SHARE them with me here on BigTime Literacy.

GIVE some comments to other bloggers!

Glad you could stop by for Sunday Letters! Let's get this party started!

Dear Tiger Blogging Parents,
Thank you for engaging with your children and leaving them comments on their blogs! As any good blogger knows, the feedback we receive via comments really encourages us to to keep going, keep writing, and keep sharing. We're getting ready for the Slice of Life Story Challenge in March where students will write every day for the entire month! We will definitely need your support during that lengthy month!
Sincerely, a proud blogging coach

Dear Mariano's,
Thank you for stocking two of my new favorite snacks:

These Kind bars are a new flavor: Pomegranate Pistachio and they are delicious! The Pomegranate and blueberry makes it sweet and all the nuts make it a filling snack! Also, they are non-GMO and gluten free which is great by me!

Then, the Honeycomb Chuao Dark Chocolate - I originally had this as a gift from a student for Christmas (thank you, it was so thoughtful of you and it's delicious!) Now I keep just a little chocolate in the house each week and this is my fave! I just have to keep some self control because that first one I got as a gift - I ate the whole thing in one evening!
Much Love, girl with a sweet tooth

Dear Kinder Teachers,
I am constantly learning so much from you! This week I loved how you showed me your anecdotal notes you took on student writing. Kids were writing Informational Pieces about animals. They began with a web, drawing what they knew about a particular animal. Then, teachers had them write what they drew. Rather than the teachers writing the correct spelling on the webs, they took these notes on a roster so when students went to write their first drafts, they would have to work through the spelling of their words again (rather than copying what the teacher had written). I know it's this little thing and perhaps basic knowledge, but I thought it was a great way for kinder students to continue to grow as writers!
Sincerely, a Literacy Coach who is always learning

Dear Pinterest,
Thank you for the fun, entertainment, and usefulness of your site! Today's top picks are as follows:

Usefulness...made this dressing for a week of Greek Salads but haven't tried it yet! (Click the pic for the recipe!)

Fun, well, funny...yes this is my corny humor:

and more funny - providing afternoon entertainment:

I appreciate all you bring to my life, Pinterest!
xo, happy Pinner

Dear Self,
You always do this - get a manicure and then have other errands planned right after. And you always screw up your new paint job right away. Today it was 5/10 nails that took a hit. Next time - get a mani and then go home and do nothing!
Sincerely, Too busy to take a break

That's all for me today! Who are you writing letters to? Be sure to share them here!

An InLinkz Link-up

growing fluent firsties

It's that time of year again - time for testing. Time for ACCESS for our ELLs and AIMS Web for our kinder and first grade kiddos. As someone who is new to elementary, I've been learning lots - I did ACCESS with kinders and have been looking at the AIMS Web fluency data with our first grade teachers. Today we were able to sit down and brainstorm some ideas for increasing the fluency in our little readers!

source

Of course, we have to start with the data. What follows are two reports we pulled from AIMS Web...

Here is the Tier Transition Report for one of our first grade classrooms:

This report shows the percent of the class at each of the three tiers. When we add the spring scores, we'll be able to compare both triangles (hopefully the Spring one will be all green!)

And below, you can see the Class Distribution by Scores and Levels Report:

In this classroom, we see four kids in Tier 3 and another five in Tier 2. Now that we have this information, what do we do with it?

But before we get there, let's remember that numbers can be deceiving. The report above only tells us how many words were read correct - there is no indication of the inflection of words or a rating on how their reading sounds - too fast? too slow? Like every assessment, there are always limitations, but used in conjunction with others, we can get a bigger picture of the whole child!

So, we've got this data, but now what? What do we do to help children improve their fluency? Here are just a few activities that are easy to implement!

Activities to Build Fluent Readers

Read Aloud
Obviously, firsties need to hear fluent reading every day. If you are not reading aloud to your kiddos, you have to find time to do so. If children never hear how a fluent reader reads, how will they know what kind of reading to mimic? This is only one of the many perks of reading aloud!

Repeated Readings
Another activity is to allow for repeated readings of short texts. This could be a poem or a part of a song or an excerpt from a text you've already read. Repeated Readings allow students to build their automaticity with text and their prosody. Automaticity refers to the ability to read quickly without thinking to much about decoding. Then, when that brain power is freed up, students can spend it thinking about the prosody, or the rhythmic, intoned qualities of the text. Readers read by tending to punctuation, dialog, and even read sentences in chunks, phrasing groups of 3-4 words together that go together. Allowing students to read short texts on a repeated basis allows for practice of inflection!

Click the picture to read more!

Reader's Theater
I'm sure you know all about Reader's Theater - scripts that are built from stories where students all read their "part" like a play. By practicing these together, students can build their automaticity so they can begin to read with inflection. Plus, these are meant to be performed for their classmates, so the Sense of Audience really revs up their engagement!

Tech Time!
If you have access to technology, students can use their devices to record themselves reading. They can do this over time and then reflect on and evaluate their progress. They can also create readings for their peers to listen to! One of my fave bloggers, Colleen over at Literacy Loving Gals also shared a great website today on her Instagram - Vocaroo! This is a website that can be used to record readings and it looks so easy to use!

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as fluency goes - what are your go-to activities to build fluent readers? Let's keep the conversation going...leave me a comment below!

Have a great night!

guided writing #totesamazeballs

Do you use guided writing in your guided reading groups with kinder-second grade students? If you don't, this is an activity I believe you should implement...yesterday :-)

I just learned about guided writing this school year as I was investigating Jan Richardson's Guided Reading components. Currently, I am working with some second graders who are reading around a H-I level. The lesson plan for these kiddos is a two day plan, and guided writing falls into the second day of the lesson plan.

Guided writing involves me dictating a sentence to students for writing practice. We spend two days on the same book, and then towards the end of the second day, I will give students a sentence I have composed for them to write. When I am composing these sentences, I make them about the book we've read, and I craft the sentence very strategically. For example, I try and use the sight words that have been taught recently. I also pick words that students can write, but might have to stretch to get to the correct spelling. I might also be curious about their knowledge of a phonics rule - so in this case, I would choose a word that followed that pattern to use as an assessment of their phonics knowledge. These are some of the things I take into consideration as I craft the sentences.

Guided Writing is also a great time to coach on correct letter formation. My kiddos write on primary lined paper that I have stapled into little books - so they can learn correct formation of letters. So, when they are writing the sentences, I am able to watch them form letters and then coach them to better writing. I might notice they are forming letters in the wrong way or that they are using capital letters inappropriately. No matter what, it's a time to coach for improved writing!

We also talk about what goes at the beginning and end of the sentences - so children are constantly being reminded of capital letters and ending punctuation.

Have I sold you on Guided Writing yet?

Well, if I have, then you'll want to make sure you do one more thing before you have kids write your sentence - rehearsal. The kiddos have to practice the sentence orally before they write or they will forget it. So, what I do is ask them to set their pencils down, and then listen to my sentence.

The first time, I say it naturally. Kids listen. Then they say it with me a few times. Finally, I have them say it again, counting the words in the sentence. Then they are ready to write.

I didn't expect this activity to carry over into other areas, but last Thursday I watched it do so. The kids were working on determining the major and minor characters, what the character wants, and how characters respond to events in their stories. I did the first cycle with them on our first book, and then they finished. 

What I noticed when they went to the rug to work together was that they were developing their sentences orally, "Annie wants..." and then they were able to write their sentences on their matrix. I didn't even tell them to write in complete sentences: they just did! It was awesome to hear them rehearsing for what they were going to write!

So, guided writing is a worthwhile task to use in your guided reading lessons! For more information, check out Jan Richardson's book:

Are you following my blog? If not, make sure to do so! Coming next weekend, I'm participating in a great blog hop with some amazing Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches. There will be lots of freebies and some giveaways, too!

Happy Sunday! Hope your football team isn't annoying you as much as mine are!