Seating Success

I am happy to report that the seating chart that I implemented in Week 3 is having a positive effect on the class. The children are much faster to get settled on the mat, there are less disruptions and the children are more focused....and another great side effect is that the children who were disruptive and lacking in self control are beginning to act like the other members of the class. 

Swimming is going well and the children are enjoying it. The buddy system that we have set up with the Yr7/8 children is great and it is lovely to see the children looking up to their positive role models. Their buddies sent them an invitation to come and view their new learning space on Friday and the children in Room 9 cannot wait to visit. 

Reading groups are now up and running. Emily and I have taken the lower readers to best utilize our skills. Having not taught reading in a classroom setting for four years, it is taking some time to readjust back. Having taught reading recovery and working so closely with just one student at a time, makes groups seems a little over-whelming...and loud! However, I feel I have many more strategies, skills and ideas to offer my students - it's now just finding how to transfer these successfully into a group situation in the best way possible. (I will make sure that I update on how this goes.) 

Thanks to my reading recovery training, I can get through running records pretty quickly and over the past few days I have come to realise just how grateful I am for this qualification. I managed to squeeze in a couple at the end of the day and it was great to be able to give instant, practical feedback to some of the parents after school. I had one child who was only reading at Level 3, but was cross-checking, re-reading for meaning, self-correcting and who was using all three sources of information together at error. I was so pleased to see this, as it is often difficult to pick these things up during reading groups. His mother was happy to receive this information. Another child I noticed, was not reading for meaning - for example, reading "riding no the path" instead of reading "riding on the path." I was able to let her mother know that she could help her at home by prompting her with "does that make sense?" when an error like that occurs. Reading is definitely a subject that I now feel most confident at teaching and am able to quickly pinpoint what strategies children are or aren't using.