The Jan Plan, Part II

Tiffany Brosig — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 08:09:00 +0000

I’m back for another post about guided reading using Jan Richardson’s book, The Next Step in Guided Reading. Her format really does help you get the most out of that short chunk of guided reading time. Today, I’m going to show you what an emergent reading lesson looks like. This is the format followed for levels A-C. The instructional focus will change depending on students’ needs, but the overall organization and procedures will be the same.

Part One-Sight word review

We begin the lesson by doing a quick review of three previously taught sight words. Each time the students write a word correctly, I mark it down on a recording sheet. After the student has written the word independently several times, I am confident that it is a known word. You get good at figuring out who knows the word and who is averting their eyes to try to look at someone else’s board.

Part Two- Book introduction and reading

Next, I introduce the story and any new vocabulary the students will need to know. We may quickly preview the story and make predictions, but we don’t spend a ton of time before we get down to the nitty gritty business of reading. This is where it looks like your usual guided reading lesson. The students quietly read the story while I monitor and support if needed. I usually take a running record on a student at this time.

Before, during, and after reading, I encourage students to use our strategies to figure out unknown words. After reading, we discuss the strategies the students used and talk about any tricky parts we encountered. If there is enough meat to the story to discuss it, we will talk about the events and our connections to the story.

Part Three-Teach one new sight word

I ALWAYS have the students build a new sight word with magnetic letters. We may also play “mix and fix” where the students mix up the letters and put it back together, saying the letters in order each time. We also write the word on a white board and sometimes play “what’s missing?” where I simply write the word on a white board missing one or two letters and the students have to fill them in.

I store the magnetic letters needed for the sight word in these little disposable Glad containers. They stack neatly and are the perfect size.

Part Four- word study

Finally, we do some quick word work. It may be a sort, Elkonin boxes, or making words with magnetic letters.

I keep the letters needed to make the day’s word in these cups from the grocery store. Having a different container keeps me from mixing up the letters.

And that’s the end of the emergent guided reading lesson…BUT WAIT! This is a two-day plan! On the second day, the students practice sight words, reread the story, and practice the new sight word much like day 1. But in place of word study, we do guided writing in their guided writing journals. This is usually a sentence that I dictate to the students.

I use these journals that I created, because I felt that giving the students a small place to draw a QUICK picture helps them to remember what was written…but a few blank sheets of paper stapled into a book is all you really need.

There sure is a lot of wood grain going on in these guided reading posts! I hope you found them useful. If you are not familiar with Jan Richardson’s book The Next Step in Guided Reading, I highly recommend you check it out! Her website is also filled with great information and downloads, which you can get here.

One last thing… I have created some resources for getting started with guided reading in your classroom. I call them Guided Reading Essentials, and they can be found at my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you are interested! The guided writing notebooks are a FREEBIE! Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

The post The Jan Plan, Part II appeared first on KTeacherTiff.

Why I Love “The Jan Plan”

Tiffany Brosig — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 07:42:00 +0000

Guided reading used to be a struggle for me. I understood the concepts, read the books on the subject, and implemented guided reading in my classroom, but I just felt like something was missing.

It kind of looked like this:
“I’m done with the book, Mrs. Brosig!”
“OK…um…just read it again! for the 99th time…”

Or:
“Let’s talk about this eight-sentence book for ‘comprehension’ purposes for a while…like a LONG while!”

Or:
“Hey! I found these worksheets on Reading A-Z so they must be great!” (not knocking Reading A-Z…I totally love that resource).

You see, what was missing from my guided reading lessons before was consistency… We might do a sort or some word work one day, others we’d just fill in a graphic organizer related to the story (at level A, not the best use of our time!), but the kids never really knew what to expect. Honestly, I disliked guided reading very much.

Enter Jan Richardson. The book that finally made it all click. I’ve been using The Next Steps in Guided Reading for three years now and I haven’t strayed, because I find that it works for me better than any other system. I can honestly say that guided reading now runs like a well-oiled machine, and it is one of my favorite components of the day! So I thought I would post what guided reading lessons look like in my classroom, based on her plan. Today, I will be sharing a Pre-A lesson. Pre-A students are those who know fewer than 40 letters (counting both capital and lowercase). They need experience with print concepts suck as tracking print and identifying a letter vs. a word.

Full disclosure: The students who modeled this lesson for me are above a pre-a level. They were kind enough to roll with me before reading their own books for the day.

Part One: Working with Letters and Names (3-4 minutes)

When pre-a students come to my table, the very first thing they do is get their ABC charts and a baggie that holds all of the letter they know. They match the letters to the chart until time runs out (it goes quick!)

They may also sort the letters by color, match capital and lowercase letters, name a word that begins with letters in their baggies, or find a target letter on their chart (i.e. “find the letter that you hear at the beginning of car.” At the very beginning of the year, we also do name puzzles until the students can write and identify the letters in their names.

We also spend a minute working on letter formation. The sheet protectors are great for that. They just write their letters down in the empty space on the chart.

Part Two: Working with Sounds (2-3 minutes)

At the pre-A level, we work on the phonological awareness skills of syllables, rhymes, and beginning sounds. We usually do a quick picture sort as a group.

Part Three: Working With Books (5 minutes)

The focus is here is oral language, print concepts, and book handling skills. We CHORAL read a simple level A book together. As we read, the students are encouraged to describe what is happening in the pictures. After reading, I ask the students to look for one word, the first word in a sentence, the last word in a sentence, the first letter of a word, a space, etc.

Part Four: Interactive Writing (5 minutes)

We share the pen, writing a sentence that follows the pattern of the story. I have the students write the dominant consonant sounds that they can hear. We then cut up the sentence and put it back together. One student gets to take the cut-up sentence home.

And that, my friends, is the Pre-A procedure of “The Jan Plan.” I highly recommend you read The Next Step in Guided Reading if you haven’t. There is a ton of great information that helps your understanding of how to move the students through the skills and strategies of learning to read. I’ll be back soon to post photos of an emergent guided reading lesson!

The post Why I Love “The Jan Plan” appeared first on KTeacherTiff.

Jan Richardson Archives - KTeacherTiff

The Jan Plan, Part II

Why I Love “The Jan Plan”