Oh my goodness. Okay. I am so excited that we are going live. This is our first Wednesday of our Stellar Teacher summer series and this is technically the first time that we will be doing a live inside our upper elementary reading teacher Facebook group and first of all, let me just say that if you have joined our reading Upper Elementary Reading Teacher Facebook group, I am so excited. I have absolutely loved the questions y'all have been the energy in this group. it just really makes me excited to, I don't know, connect with you and learn with you and I just think it's going to be a really great community for us this summer. So, thank you for joining that group and being a part of the community. I am streaming with a service called Streamyard and it goes to both the Facebook group and my Facebook page and if you are watching live, if you wouldn't mind just letting me know in the comments your name and your grade and if you can hear me okay, this is the first time I'm doing the double kind of the double streaming and I want to make sure that audio and everything is good before I get too far into the live. Also, a full disclosure, I do share an office with two great Danes and while they are usually pretty good, we are in the middle of a little bit of a thunderstorm here and so I'm hoping that the thunderstorm does not disrupt them too much. So, if you you hear some dog in the background, I'll do my best to keep them quiet. Doris is here and she is from grade three. I'm so happy to have you joining us. So, a couple of things I is here. Fifth grade. Heather. thank you so much. I appreciate you for letting me know about the sound. fifth grade teacher. Perfect. I love interacting with you guys and I know that obviously during the Facebook Live, I am technically the only one that is doing the talking but if you have questions about something that I'm talking about, feel free to leave them in the comments. If I say something that you really connect with, I would love to hear that from you. Anytime I see you guys interacting in the comments, it just makes it makes it more fun for me. So, I would to just like I said, feel free to comment and engage That just makes me know that like I said, I'm kind on the right track and what I'm saying is helpful for you guys. Amy is joining us. Shannon is joining us. Great. I absolutely love this Also, just so you guys know, this is our first Facebook live but I will be going live every Wednesday at 5 PM Eastern both inside our upper elementary Reading teacher Facebook group and they'll be streaming to my Facebook page as well so you can catch it in either places but I'm so happy to have all of these here. You see my little like reading teacher. Heart is so happy. So, let's go ahead and kind of get started. The original plan. If you guys saw my and I think I have a copy of it here but if you saw my summer series calendar and if you haven't seen that yet, we can link it in the Facebook group. The original plan for today was for me to talk about really my first 3 weeks of reading workshop but after I've gotten a lot of questions from you guys inside the Facebook group, I decided that I wanted to table that. So eventually, I will sort of walk you through what my first 3 weeks of instruction looks like but I have had so many questions about scheduling so many questions about how do I set up my reading block, how do I fit it all in? How do I make sure that my reading block is actually engaging and effective and how long should I be spending on each part of my reading block and so, I know that there are so many questions around scheduling and so before we jump into the first 3 weeks before we jump into things, many lessons and small groups and reading conferences and read alouds. I want to give you guys some tips suggestions all about scheduling. So, we kind of change the topic for this week but like I said, based off of the questions, I don't I think you guys are going to be okay with that. So, hopefully I can give you some tips and strategies to help you come up with your schedule and then at the very end, I will share with you how I set up my schedule in fourth grade when I taught reading workshop in fourth grade. So, if you have questions, at any point in time. like I said, post them in the comments If I don't get to them to the live, I will come back and answer them and if you are watching the replay, you can go ahead and type in replay in the comments as you're watching this so that way we know who catches the replay and like I said, we will come back and answer those questions. also before we move on, we did a giveaway inside our Facebook group for picture books and so I'm going to go ahead and announce the winner. So, Grace Jefferies, Beth Kuzma, and Kelsey Dickinson. You guys are the winners of our picture book giveaway. I will have Brooke who an admin of the Facebook group. connect with you guys and we'll make sure that you get those prizes. So, if you're in the group, keep checking back. We have lots of fun things plan for this week but I wanted to go back to real quick before I get started. Call Jean posted a question in our Facebook group today. I don't know if you saw it but it literally I was like, this is perfect because this is exactly what we are going to be talking about tonight but she said I have been binge listening to the podcast today which thank you for listening to the podcast. I appreciate it and she says I love it but I'm wondering how in the world do I fit it all in That is the question that I think so many of you have. She says, I have 90 minutes to teach ELA which I know many of you have and then she says, how do you fit in reading many lessons? writing many lessons, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, guided reading, strategy groups, writing conferences, and reading conferences. How do you get all of that into a 90 minute block? So, raise your hand. maybe if you've had that same question because we do wonder how do we get it all in and first of all, let me go ahead and tell you, you don't have to fit it all in. I think that is problem and I think a lot of times when we think about scheduling, we look to everybody else and we don't necessarily consider what is true for our schedule and we hear teachers say things like, well, I'm able to fit in three guided reading groups every single day or I'm able to read aloud to my students for 30 minutes every single day or we have time to do a full reading workshop and a full writing workshop every single day but we don't know how much time they have. We don't know what their block looks like. We don't know what is expected of them. their administration and their district and when we hear other teachers share what they do with their schedule, that can be an encouraging and inspiring but it can also make us worry that we're not doing enough. So, before we get into sort of the practical tips, I want to let you know that you do not have to do everything during your reading block or your writing block that you can be an effective teacher even if you don't pull small groups every single day that you can have success teaching, writing, and reading even if you don't do things like love to your students every day or do a mini lesson every day or even ever do a reading or writing conference. Those are not necessary in order for you to be successful. What is necessary for you to be successful is for you to care about and know about your students and know what works for them and also to know what works for you as a teacher and I already know that you guys care about your students and you care about how you show up for them because you're here watching this training and you are in the Facebook group asking questions and so I want to just have you? I want to encourage you to think about your schedule from a place of confidence and I really want you to know that regardless of how much time you have, regardless of what you choose to include your schedule and what you don't put in your schedule, that it can be successful. The time has nothing to do with how successful your students will be. It has everything to do with how you choose to use that time and hopefully, like I said after today, you will have a few tips that will help you feel a little bit more confident in how to set up your schedule. So, let me scroll through my notes a little bit. I don't want to miss anything. So, again, before I get into some of the practical tips, I think it's really important for us to think about our mindset when we think about scheduling and think about planning your reading block and your literacy block kind of the same way that you would a Friday night if you are making social plans on a Friday night, you probably would not plan to go to happy hour with friends and then go to dinner and then go catch a movie and then go see a concert and also try to catch a musical and meanwhile, pick up the dry cleaning and go grocery shopping and have a relaxing evening at home because all of that cannot into the same time frame within a Friday evening and the same is true with our reading block in school. Even if you want to do it all, even if you are like all of these things are great. even if that's a Friday night, you're like, I love doing all of these things. You just can't realistically fit it into your time frame and so I think first and foremost, give yourself permission that you don't have to squeeze it all in and then I also want you to try to approach your schedule from a place of calm and confidence. I know so often teachers and when I say teachers I am putting myself in this category because I said this too. These are things that I have said in the past. I say things like, I don't have time to teach small groups. I don't have time for a read aloud. I don't have time to do reading conferences. I don't have time for my students to be writing every day and when we say things like we don't have time, We know that we are operating from a place of a fixed mindset and that thought is going to have a panic. It's going to have us feel rushed. It's going to have us want to worry about whether or not we're going to get through our lessons We're going to sort of show up in our lessons already from a place of stress and you are not going to be your best teacher if you are stressed. So, rather, I want you to think about your schedule for a place of confidence and I want you to trust that whatever you put in your schedule is going to be what is best for your students and their learning style and it's going to be what's best for you and your teaching style and just remind yourself that you have enough time. There is enough time in the day for you to get to the important things and you have until the end of the year for your students. to master every single skill that you have to that you have to teach them. So, be confident in how you show up and then also less can be more. I think sometimes we feel like we have to be doing all of the things but rather than rushing through your schedule and trying to squeeze in read alouds and small groups, multiple small groups trying to meet with every student in a small group every day. If that is feeling rushed and you're not getting through things, then tell yourself, you know what? rather than trying to do everything every single day, I'm going to pick the two or three things that I know I am good at and benefit my students and I'm going to prioritize those. So, we're going to talk a little bit about some of those scheduling tips. Yes. okay, I'm glad that this stuff stuff is helpful. Sometimes when I'm like thinking of these things, I was like, I hope they're not like, okay, come on lady. Like, give us some practical tips but I really do think that it's true. You know, our mindset impacts everything that we do and so, like I said, trust yourself. You guys are all amazing teachers and trust that you can be effective even with a short reading block. So, a couple tips when it comes to actually scheduling. So, these are some things that I would encourage you encourage you to do as you're thinking about your schedule. First and foremost, accept what you are given. If you have a 90 minute walk and you have to get in everything. reading and writing into that 90 minutes. There is no point in wishing you had an extra hour or trying to make time somewhere else except what you are given and then, I think we also have to acknowledge the fact that we all come from different schools that have principles and districts and curriculum expectations that we are expected to uphold and so if your school does not give you a lot of flexibility, then you also have to realize that okay, I'm working in the school. These are sort of my limitation and I am going to do my best with what I am given and ultimately, that is what we want. We want everybody to do. It's just their best with what they are given. So, step number one, accept what you are given and then with what you have. Don't try to squeeze more in. less is going to be more and you are going to be more effective as a teacher if you can do the few things really, really well rather than trying to rush through everything. I know that for many years, I try to do three reading groups every single day and if you haven't been able to tell, I'm a bit of a person in my reading groups always went on and ultimately, we got to the end of the reading group and my third group of the day was always cut short. I always had 10 minutes and we never really got through it and every day, I was like, okay, I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better. I'm going to get to that third group and it never worked and finally, I was like, why am I trying to squeeze in three groups? That does not work for my style of teaching and I cut it down to only doing two small groups every single day and then I had time for reading conferences and that works so much better for me because I wasn't trying to do more than schedule could handle. So, that's like I said, next tip, work with what you have and don't try to squeeze more in and then the other thing that I really want to encourage and challenge you is commit to doing high impact activities and routines and a lot of times we set up our reading block out of this is what my school tells me I have to do and this is how we've always done it. This is what other teachers are doing and we don't necessarily stop to question is spending time on this activity going to help my students become better readers and better writers and if you look every single thing you want to squeeze into your reading block and your writing block and you ask that question and if the answer is no, get it off your schedule. find another way to address it and for me, one of the things I realized is that the school that I was at, we did, we spent time during our instructional day teaching spelling and that was part of our whole group instruction or our, you know, our independent practice and I never had a really good spelling routine. So, for me, that part of my day was wasted. Now, there are plenty of teachers who can teach and it really hands-on effective way where students are not only memorizing worked list but they're actually manipulating words and they're understanding it but I never got to that point and for me, I realized that spelling was not productive for my students and so I turned it into homework. My students had spelling homework every day but we didn't do anything during our instructional day with spelling. Same thing with vocabulary. When I first started teaching, I was using a basil program. We had vocabulary words every single week that we had to teach our students. We had vocabulary activities and after a while, I was like, okay, my students study these vocabulary words. We do activities with them. We do games with them. They get tested on them but a few weeks later, they don't know these vocabulary words. They haven't stuck with them. So, I realized that was not an effective part of my day. So, I got rid of it and I committed to doing the things that I know I was good at teaching and that was beneficial for my students and those were things like reading aloud. I know that every time I sit down to read aloud to students to read aloud, a story to my students, they are going to benefit from it. many lessons. It took me a long time to get there but Eventually, I became really good at doing a mini lesson and I could actually keep the mini and so, I knew that my time was going to be better spent doing a mini lesson versus something, you know, something else. So, I think it's important for you to figure out what is going to have the best impact on your students. So, as you're listening because again, I'd love to have you guys kind of engaged. Tell me in the comments, what do you feel like is one part of your reading block that your students really benefit from something that you know, if you included this in your schedule is going to help your students become readers and writers and I would love to have you put that in the comments and I'm going to going to wait a little bit here because I know sometimes there's a little bit of a lag from when I'm going live to when you actually hear what I'm saying. read aloud and I think a lot of teachers can probably say that same thing with like small group book clubs is another example. So, I'll share a little snippet from when I was in the classroom. I had a teacher across the hall who I would say was an expert at doing both clubs and she had book clubs constantly going in her classroom all of the time. Every day. her students were in a book club. They were self sufficient. They were great. When I first started doing book clubs, I was not that good at them and it took me a while to figure it out and so I didn't try to do a book club every single day and we sort of had it on a rotation to where 1 week out of the month, we would do a book club and that is basically all we did in our independent reading time for that week and then, we went back to our normal routine. So, I still did book clubs but I didn't try to do them every single day as part of my instruction because I was not good at facilitating them which means my students weren't going to be as independent. I see a lot of small groups, a lot of guided reading, one-on-one conferences, many lessons, reading loves. Yes. So you guys already know the things that if you spend time on it, it is going to help your students. So, once you know that you want to work within that zone of genius, you want to make sure that those are the things that get plugged into your schedule first. If you know a mini lesson is impactful for your students, that should be one of the first things that gets put on your schedule. If you know guided reading is you're just know how to rock a small group and your students grow leaps and bounds then commit to doing guided reading every single day and make like make that just the expectation like I whatever I do today, I'm going to get this one thing done because I know it is going to help my students. double block. It's up to figure out how to budget our time. Oh, yes and yeah, Amy, that is a really hard thing to be able to figure out how to do both reading and writing at the same time and that might be something I would, I have a lot of ideas or thoughts on that that I might do in a separate training or live and I think that there's ways just a real quick couple tips that you could do with that. I think using the same mentor texts for your reading and writing mini lessons trying to come up with some of the same objectives. So, if you're covering, you know, fiction in reading, then use that as a chance to teach narrative in writing and try to mirror some of the objectives. So, it is definitely challenging and with everything that that I'm saying here, I don't want to minimize or say that coming up with a schedule is easy. It isn't. It is difficult because you have limitations and you know, we want so much for our students to be successful but the reality of the day is is we are limited with the time that we have and so even if it is challenging, even if it is hard to do your best to come up with a schedule that you know, you can stick to that is going to help your students and things that you feel really confident in teaching and then other things that I want you to think about when you are doing your schedule is to first of all get creative. I know teachers one of the most creative people out there. you guys. Seriously, we can make a lesson, you know, on the fly. we can come up with, you know, games just at recess, you know, without any planning. So, I know you guys are all creative and so think about how you can maximize other parts of your day that is going to be challenged a challenging. obviously, if you are departmental and all you're doing is reading and writing but think about, you know, are there other parts that you can squeeze in or read aloud. Can you also teach reading objectives during another subject? Can you use your transition times? Do you a morning meeting. Do you have like, you know, time at the end of the day that you could even do, You know, whether it's a quick little read aloud or practice the vocabulary game or even are there things are the routines that you could teach your students that could become part of their homework, their independent practice. I have a vocabulary routine that I taught my students and we used it for context clues. Greek and Latin Roots, prefix and suffix and it was the same routine but it helped helped them kind of all of those vocabulary areas and we spent some time that at the beginning of the year but once they learn that routine, it became their independent practice and in some cases, it was independent practice during the school day but in some cases, it also became their homework. So, think about is there something that you could do to their homework that would give you a little bit more time during the day for those high impact activities Oh my gosh, the vocabulary routines you guys are asking such good questions. So, the vocabulary routine, I'll spend just a few minutes on this and then I will be happy to like I said, I'm planning on going live every Wednesday and so if we can't get to something today, I will be happy to do a whole separate Facebook training on the vocabulary routines but basically, the vocabulary routine focuses on students using context clues and so whether it is actual context clues or grief roots or prefix is they're using a, you know, the context of the paragraph to figure it out and I would just have a little paragraph that has the specific word and they would read the paragraph and we broke it up and it was just a short 5 minute routine every day. Monday, they read the paragraph and they make the prediction for the word or the root or the prefix. The next day, they go to the dictionary and they look it up. So, they're getting practiced in the dictionary and then they confirm that their meeting was correct and then on Tuesday, they dig deeper into that word or that route and they look at they look up synonyms. they look up anonymous. They look up the part of speech because understanding the part of speech is really helpful if they're making predictions for what that word means and then they will the other parts of the week, they're going to be drawing a picture using in a sentence and then there was there's one other thing or let me do that as five. It's been a minute since I've done it but it's the same sort of thing. So, every week, they did the same thing. Monday, the same thing Tuesday, the same thing Wednesday we just swapped out the word so it made it really easy for them to do it independently and then once I got really good with context clues, I just started putting words in that had Greek and Latin roots and we talked about how they had to predict what the root meant based off of the word that was used in context. So, super easy to use. We can link to that in the After I'm done with the live, I'll add the link to the template or the resource that I use for the vocabulary one and then, like I said, I would love to do a whole training or live on how I use that with my students but back to scheduling. So, get creative. Think about how you can use time outside of your reading or literacy block and then the other thing that I would say is be flexible and I think it's important for us to realize that when we have a schedule that is our ideal. That is what we would love to strive for every single day but we lies that something's come up. Whether that is a school assembly, a holiday, or just you're in the moment and your read aloud took so much longer because your students had great questions or maybe your mini lesson wasn't so many 1 day or your students were in the zone with writing and you didn't want to end it. So, if if you are being responsive to your students, it is okay to be flexible. It is okay if someday you don't get to your read aloud because you are spending something else on another part of your lesson is okay if you don't pull small groups every single day because your students were so engaged You know something else you are doing in another part of the reading block. So, just be flexible and know that the schedule is your ideal but we're not going to get to that every single day. The other thing I would say try this is hard to but try to find time to try new things because that is how we become better is if we are constantly trying new structures and strategies. So, even though we're crunched for time, maybe give yourself one Friday out of the month where you are going to try something new whether that's a reading conference strategy group or maybe you're going to try book book talks or book clubs because if you can start to try new things and you realize, you know what? Actually, I'm much better at doing strategy groups and I am guided reading. Then, you have one whole you have a whole other toolbox that you can put into your, you know, your strategy bank to use and you might realize that you're going to be more effective and strong with, you know, different different routines and activities out there. So, even if you have a limited time commit to continuing to learn and develop and try things with your students because you might find something that not only can be done in a quicker amount of time but also also it's going to have a bigger impact on your students. So, just continue to explore and grow as teachers. So, hopefully some of those tips are helpful. I would love to know before I get into sharing how I set up my fourth grade reading block. I would love to know if any of those tips really resonated with you. If there's one that you're like, okay, I've never thought about my schedule this way. Let me know in the comments if there's something that I just shared as far as tips when it comes to scheduling, what worked with you and then, I will also make sure we include to this and I know a lot of you already grabbed this because I think that's how you found out about our free Facebook group but I do have a freebie. This is what the cover looks like but it's how to create a stellar literacy block in upper elementary and inside that freebie, I include sample schedules for all of the different literacy blocks. So, 90 minutes, 110 minutes 100 120 minutes and so if you are still trying to look for ideas, These are all simply ideas. None of these are the be all end all and I've I've said this before. I don't know if I've said this on this training. So, let me just take the opportunity to remind you there is not just one way to teach reading. So, know that if you get ideas or you hear other people how they set up their block that is because that's what works for them but there is not just one single way to teach reading. There are many different schedules and structures that will work for you and your students but we will link to that freebie in case you have not grabbed it yet. It might be helpful as you're thinking about how you want to set up your blog Lisa. I'm so glad that that permission resonated with you. I think sometimes as teachers, we don't get that permission enough. you guys, seriously, you work so hard. You want to do everything so incredibly well and I think sometimes we do need to be permission to focus more on the quality and the depth versus trying to hit a tick box like I got my small group and today, I got my read aloud today. So I will happily give you permission to focus more on quality versus quantity any day of the week. Yes, do what you're good at for sure. Always like and I think sometimes it can be difficult because we hear and we see and we see other things that are working for other teachers We always hear about what is working. We rarely hear about things that don't work and so of course, if it is working for somebody else that can feel pressure like, well, maybe it needs to be working for me as well but again, let me just remind you, you guys are all amazing. You are all awesome teachers and just trust your gut. You know, what is best for your students. So, with that being said, let me grab a real drink of water. I'm sorry. I tend to talk fast. If you cannot tell, I get really excited. Anytime I talk about teaching reading, especially but I wanted to share with you before we finish up today and thank you so much for everybody. who was stuck with me through this whole training. I just love talking with you guys but let me share with you how I set up my reading block in fourth grade. So, II taught first grade, second grade, fourth grade. I also worked as a literacy specialist and an instructional coach and as an assistant principal and it was really interesting when I was an assistant principal because I got to see scheduling on a whole big school level but when I was in fourth grade, I was lucky enough to be at a school where I had 90 minutes to teach reading and then I had an additional 60 minutes to teach writing and I was also self-contained which means I had a lot of flexibility throughout the day and so, that is one thing I want you to keep in mind when you hear my schedule and how I set it up because again, I had I had a really good amount of time to teach reading. I was not trying to squeeze in reading and writing into a 90 minute block. My schedule will probably look differently if I was limited with time but that is just so you know, I had 90 minutes for reading 60 minutes for writing and I was self contained and my school was also gracious and giving me a lot of flexibility to, you know, adjust my schedule how I need it and the way that I use my or the way that I set up my block is I love using the reading workshop model which we're going to be spending a bit of time talking about later this summer. If you're not new to it and I know people have asked questions about how to make workshop work with the basil and I've got a lot to share about that as well but the workshop model is basically where you have a ten to 15 minute mini lesson where you're using a picture book to introduce teach a small bite sized objective to your students and then they have 45 minutes or forty to 45 minutes roughly of independent reading time where the goal is is that they are practicing applying what you've taught them during the mini lesson to a self selected text. Sounds dreamy. It doesn't always work like that and sometimes we don't always get up to 45 minutes and then while students are, that's my dog. hopefully her dog toys aren't too loud for you guys but while students independently. I was able to pull small groups and I did guided reading groups. I also experimented with using strategy groups. Sometimes, I was doing only guided reading. Sometimes, I was only doing strategy groups. Sometimes, I was doing book clubs and then I love doing reading conferences as well. So, I also made time to do reading conferences during that 45 minute window. Now, usually with the 45 minutes when my students were independently reading and that was on a good day. So, trust me, my students had their moments where 20 minutes into the reading block lost their minds and we've lost focus. So, we shut down independent reading early but on a good day that 45 minutes would allow me to really meet with two reading groups and then have time for maybe two reading conferences and sometimes I would choose to only do one reading group and then other times I would do mostly reading conferences. Sometimes I would do only reading conferences. Sometimes I would do guided reading groups and strategy groups and then I would spend 10 minutes just observing the and behaviors of my students during independent reading because that can be so insightful looking at students body language, how they're reading, looking at their facial expressions, looking at how, you know, quickly they move through books, All of those things can tell you how engaged they are as readers and can give you lots of ideas and content for both many lessons and conferences. So, sometimes I would use part of that independent reading time to observe and just notice what is going on in my classroom when students are working independent and independently actually asked a great question. How long were my reading groups? So, I would try to keep them less than 20 minutes. My goal is usually 1818 minutes was kind of my goal. I've tried to do fifteen but I realized that was too short. So I tried to make sort of eighteen. my goal, I found that I had a little bit more success with strategy groups versus a guided reading group because strategy groups we can get through the strategy a lot quicker and shorter so I could do a strategy group lesson probably in you know, 15 minutes or less versus the guided reading was just a lot more that went into that but again, I'm long winded and sometimes my groups will be twenty and honestly, sometimes they'll be Twenty-two. So, I think it's always good to have sort of that goal but realizing that again, sometimes we're we're I think this is one of the things that we forget we are working with human beings. We are working with children and sometimes sometimes they don't get what we're talking about right away and it takes a little bit longer and sometimes they have connections that pop up and we don't want to squash their love of reading and so sometimes even if we say, okay I want group to be 18 minutes but somebody shared a connection at the end is like, well, I need to let them explore this. So, I think that goes back to the flexibility part having this idea but knowing that because we work with students and people, it's going to, it's not always going to work out that way. observations. Yes. I love that. Yeah. we can learn so much sometimes just by observing and II. think that goes back to this idea if we can be confident in the time that we do have. Not all of our instruction or our time has to be spent with us doing things. You know, I always say students are the ones that should be doing most of the work and so sometimes as teachers, we can just like step back and watch and observe and that can be really beneficial. So, then at the end of my independent reading time, I would try to do a five to 10 minute closure and this is something that I often skipped and quickly realized it was important because our students need to have a closure to the end of the lesson. I realized this 1 year when my students started saying things like, well, are we ever going to finish? you know, talking about inferences? Are we ever going to finish, you know, talking about this or it's like, oh, I thought we were still working on that because we never ended that lesson really and so, I realized how important it is for us to come back at the end of the lesson even if it is simply to say, you know, remind them of the teaching point to let a few students share what they were working on, maybe give a preview for what comes tomorrow but it doesn't have to be long. I love letting my students turn into and to share what they read and what they focus on. I love anytime I can validate a student's Reading preferences but just even a quick little, you know, come back to the carpet and let's close out the lesson so that way they know there is an end to it. So, that was the 60 minutes of the reading workshop. Now, keep in mind, I had 90 minutes to teach reading. so, I had an additional 30 minutes in my reading block and during that 30 minutes, this is when I would try to do my read aloud. I try to spend most of the time doing my read aloud 20 minutes. sometimes the whole thirty if I could and then I would also try to do vocabulary if we needed phonics worked, worked any of those things and then kind of, you know, if something popped up or if I needed a little extra more time for writing or if I wanted to do extra Reading conferences, If we were doing book talks, I would let my students do book talks during that time. So, sort of whatever we needed but I use that mostly for the read-aloud time and in Upper elementary I every single day. Read my students at least one picture book because a couple one. I would use picture books for my mini lessons and I wanted them to be familiar with the story before we did the mini lesson. So, I make sure to read picture books every single day but I also found that as much as I love reading novels, novels, and chapter books and we did that too. I found that it was so much easier to keep students engaged and excited about the stories and picture books because we can get through them in one session and it also gives me a chance to introduce and expose them to so many genres at a much quicker rate. So, during that 30 minutes, most of our time was spent picture books. How often do I assess fluency with my students? Actually, that is a great question and a lot of it depended honestly on the district that I was in. I taught in one district where we use the Dibbles assessment and so we had to assess their fluency. I think it was quarterly the district that I most recently taught at. We did multiple benchmarks assessments and the way I did my assessment in Upper Elementary is once my students were fluent readers, I didn't necessarily check in and test their fluency on a regular basis. if I had students and I always had struggling readers that were not fluent. If I had students that were not fluent, I would check their fluency and I would try to do it during things like not formally with, you know, running records but or time assessments but I would listen to them during guided reading, reading conferences anytime that I can get a chance to listen to them and give them feedback. So, I think it's just a matter of when we can squeeze that in a list of picture books that I use. Oh my goodness, the list could go on and on and on. Yes, I have actually quite a few list of picture books We'll try to we'll definitely try to share some of them and then I'll kind of talk about where you can get where I have, I'm working on kind of my master list of like my Twenty-five favorite list that some teachers in my membership had asked for. So, you'll have a chance to get that later in the summer. I'm going to come back to some of these questions because I want to get through my entire block and then I will happily stay on and answer some of these questions. So, hang tight but yeah, during that 30 minute time, like I said, I would do read aloud and sometimes we're reading aloud, a picture book and a chapter book as well and then I had 60 minutes to teach writing. So, again, I felt like I was very spoiled with the amount of time that I have. I know a lot of teachers only have 90 minutes to do all of that. So, during my writing, my 60 minutes for writing, I've again followed the writing workshop. I had a ten to 15 minute writing lesson. I gave my students about 30 minutes for independent writing and writing conferences and then I did about 15 minutes for grammar practice and again, all of these things with all of these, all of these schedules and all of these times, all of this is really relatively fluid and like I said, this was sort of what was on my calendar and what was in my planning book but again, knowing that some days, my mini lesson would go wrong, I would try to keep it to ten to 12 minutes but some days, my students just needed a little bit more explanation or I wasn't as prepared. I didn't have my teaching points, you know, marked as well in the mentor texts and it took me a little longer to communicate that to them. Some days we had other things going on and I had to cut our independent reading time short and so we only had 20 minutes. So, the thing that I put on my schedule was my idea It didn't always happen every single day and I think that's another thing that is important to realize is that when people talk about their schedules, this is like they're ideal but we're we're human. We're teachers. We don't always get to. we don't always have our ideal every single day. That's just like the reality of it. So, just know that what you hope to achieve during your reading block, it is okay if that is not every single day. Now, I will say if you put something on the schedule and you realize that for example, if you hope to get to two reading blocks or two reading groups every day and you realize only getting into one and that one reading group is lasting 30 minutes, then, maybe you need to look at, okay, maybe I need to change up my structure. Maybe I need to do a little bit of research and figuring out how I can make this a little bit more effective. So, there's always ways that we can improve always ways that we can grow. I think that's one of my favorite parts about being a teacher and even though I'm no longer in the classroom and I'm full time supporting teachers, I'm continuing to learn and I just love that like that is a great part of our profession is that we never reach this sort of like and part we constantly have things that we can learn and know and improve our So, I think I got through everything on my notes that I wanted to share. I am going to go ahead and I'm going to answer some of the questions but for those of you that kind of wanted to stick around until the end, let me just say thank you so much for joining me live. I really do love connecting with you. If you have questions and if I don't get to all of them on the live because I have I have about fifteen more minutes where I can stick on and answer questions live if I don't get to them. I promise I will come back and answer them in the comments and continue to ask questions in the group. I also want to remind you that I am one voice. I one perspective and I am always happy to share what works for me and what work with my students and things that I have researched and known and things that I have supported other teachers in but just because I say that this is the best way to do things does not mean that that is true because again, there is more than one way to teach reading and just know that you you are an expert at teaching your class. You know your students better than anybody else. You know your curriculum better than anybody else. You know, your school, you know, your principal, you know, those expectations. You are an expert in your your class, you're teaching your classroom and so just trust yourself. I think it's so great that you guys are here and wanting to learn and I like I said, I'm just so excited and encouraged for the summer. I think we're going to have so much fun learning alongside each other but at the end of the day, you you are the expert. so just trust whatever you think is best for your students. Trust that that actually is. So, I'm going to go ahead and answer some of the questions that people have asked and like I said, if I don't get to the question that you ask, then I will be sure to answer it in the Facebook group. Let's see. And just so you know, I don't, if you're watching, I think in my Facebook group through my streaming service, I don't actually get to see the name like for example, it says Facebook user. So, if I answer your question and I don't say your name, it's because I actually can't see it just because of my my streaming service. So, my apologies for that but the writing block time. So, for my writing block, I had 60 minutes which again was a very gracious amount of time and so I used 45 minutes for the workshop model and when we say the workshop model that is about a ten to 15 minute mini lesson and then we had about 30 minutes for pendant writing and during that time, I would do conferences or writing small groups and then again, a five-minute closure. So, it mirrored writing or it mirrored our reading workshop. It was just a shorter amount of time. 45 minutes instead of sixty and then I had about 15 minutes for teaching grammar isolated. Now, I will say towards the end of my time in the classroom, I started experimenting with doing grammar more so through the writing workshop and teaching them an isolated skills and I quite a bit more success when I was doing like a mini lesson on, you know, if we're going to teach, you know, commas in a series, teaching them to apply that in their actual writing versus here's, you know, an activity, a worksheet, something like that about grammar. So, there's a ton of different ways to teach grammar and I think it's just a matter of figuring out what works but that is how I structured my writing workbook 45 minutes of writing workshop and then 15 minutes kind of specific for Grammar Shannon asked about did I read a picture book for the first time the day before you were going to teach a mini lesson using the text sometimes but one of the things that I love about using picture books is that you can come back to them over and over and over again. So, one thing and this would be a great thing for you to do over the summer but think about what are some of your favorite mentor tips to use to teach fiction if that is the first unit you teach. that was usually what we started with Story Elements, characters setting plot theme summary. So, think about what picture books are you going to teach those skills and then read those stories to your students during the first week of school and so, even if you don't start teaching, you know, theme until week four, you can come back to a story. You read that first week and students love when you say, hey, do you remember when we read this book, you know, back at the beginning of the year and they're like, oh my gosh, yes, I love that story. So, you can use a mentor text for a mini lesson and it does not have to be read that week that day. It could be something that you have read to them previously weeks before, months before. it is just best if they have some familiarity with the story because then you can go to the one specific page, the exact part and point out, you know, what it is that connects to your objectives. So, hopefully that answers your question, Shannon but yeah, I would try to even, you know, pull books that we read at the beginning of the year to use so many lessons all throughout because again, students just love that familiarity and anytime, you know, I kind of had a staple of these are the mentor texts that I love using for multiple objectives and my students would see them every other week. we'll be pulling out the the same mentor texts but they love the stories and they just felt more confident in applying the skills because they already knew that story so well, Okay, let's see how, okay, what do you do to keep kids accountable for finding theme? For example, in their independent books and reading. So, as far as like and that that question works for really or it applies to pretty much any any skill you're teaching, You know, how do we get our students to make inferences independently? How do we get them to actually summarize how do we get them to actually ask questions? How do we hold our students accountable during independent and actually, great question. I think I have that on June 30th. I'm actually going to be talking all about independent reading and not only habits to build independent reading but also accountability ideas and I think the most important thing for us to remember when it comes to our students and their independent reading time and practice is that they have until the end of the year to master a skill and so if you're working on theme and your students are not proficient at right after your mini lesson or even after your fiction unit, that is okay because they have until the end of the year to get that skill and then as far as like the actual accountability to what do we want them to do during an independent reading. I think there's a lot of things that I think it just comes down to figuring out what works for you and your students. I love using sticky notes. I love giving students choice. I love giving them choice boards. I love just, you know, having choices for them to choose when it comes to how to respond and then, I think as far as like the theme, the theme is obviously one of those harder skills to teach because it's like big picture giving them specific strategies. One of the strategies that I love teaching my students about how to find the theme was really thinking about almost like what advice would you give that character? So, you know, the story You know everything. You know, their problem that they're trying to solve because the theme is usually connected to the problem. So, what advice would you give that character? You know, how would you help them solve their problem Almost as if they're writing like a deer, Abby column or something like that. So, I think giving students very specific strategies, something like that rather than saying, can you identify the theme? So, helping students really break it down but accountability, I think is challenging. Like I said, I've got a whole life plan for June 30th to talk about independent reading and like I said, how to build those habits as well as as well as some accountability ideas. So, be sure to come back then. other questions, class novel studies So, to be honest, I don't have a lot of experience doing class novel studies. So, I don't know if I can speak to that very well because I really only like to speak the things that I feel like I have a lot of experience with Now, what I did do is we did read Aloud Chapter books with our with our class. So, my students read a lot of chapter books and we would have discussions and a lot of times we would have, you know, different like activities at the end of chapters and whatnot but I really don't have a lot of experience in novel studies but I have a really good sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of teachers in our Facebook group that have used novel studies and so I would encourage you to answer or ask that question in the group and again, this goes back to I have never, I never used them in my class just because that wasn't my approach but I know that they work and I think it just comes down to figuring out what works for you and so if you are wanting to learn about novel studies, definitely ask some questions and get some feedback on that. I just, I would hate This is how you should do it. When like I said, that is not an area that I feel like I am an expert in Oh, I love your book recommendations. Yes, I love looking for picture books. I, it is. I'm seriously love getting good picture book recommendations and try to we'll try to throughout the summer, share some of our favorite picture books along with different objectives that you can teach especially as we get close to the school year and what books can you use to launch Reading workshop? Let's see. Yes. Oh my gosh. I love, I don't know who's who answered this or said this but I love that. They said we tracked the titles and the genres. I'm a bit of a genre not if you guys have followed me for a while or come to any of my other trainings you know that I love teaching genre so much and I think it's so important. So I love when can be intentional about our read alouds with the genres as well. II. Don't I might have missed some of the comments but I feel I tried to get all of them center's rotations in fourth grade. Last question, I'm going to answer and then if I don't get to them on the live, like I said, I will jump in the group and answer them. So, a couple of things about centers. First of all, like I said, I'm doing a podcast episode on centers the week of I think the twenty-eighth and I don't have that as part of my life but I would be happy to. So as far as like the centers and rotations I think so a couple things. One being really clear on what your center activities are and what the objectives are. I did centers a lot when I taught second grade and I realized that I was viewing them as busy work. I was viewing them as something to occupy and engage my students. So, I had time to pull small groups and I realized that that was a big waste of my students time and my time and so I really needed to think about what did I want my students to accomplish during each center and then is it set up in such a way that they can and Yes, I will post a link to the calendar in the Facebook group after the live along with the literacy block schedule and we'll put them both in the comments and we might even add them as like a file in the Facebook group so you can grab them but so as far as like centers, I think the really important thing is to think about what objectives do you want to accomplish during each center and then for me, I and this is just how I was as a teacher. I know there are other teachers who are a lot more organized II was just a somewhat disorganized teacher as far as like having materials prepped and prepared and sometimes I kind of hate editing that but that's just how my Melody was and so centers that required a lot of moving parts that required a refresh of activities that require something new every single week I struggled with and I quickly realized that did not work for me and so when I did use centers in my class and I use centers for a while when I taught fourth grade because the students always enjoy them. So, when I did move to centers, I had it set up more as a almost like as a choice board or as there was a lot of flexibility because I was such a big fan of giving students and freedom and I also realized that students all learn at different paces and different rates And sometimes, if we limit their activities to 20 minutes like and we rotate every 20 minutes, then that can be stressful for students. Not everybody gets the task done and so, I moved to a more sort of like fluid approach to the centers and so my students basically, by the end of the week had to accomplish the centers and always had independent reading. We always had writing about reading I tried to throw in, you know, listen to reading. I love to do like whether it was like a book club or some sort of like conversation that had, you know, talking about it. I love having like a genre center where they had to, you know, basically, you know, find a book, figure out the genre. they could ask questions, something that got them thinking about that I would make my vocabulary routine that I mentioned earlier that was off in the center, something like picture of the day could be a center I have a podcast episode coming out on the first that talks about all of those but then the way the reason why I like to do it sort of way. So, students had kind of a list by Friday. You have to complete these tasks and whatever it was that there was reading response, writing about reading, they always had choice and what they could do and the reason why I did that was because then students got to choose how they spent their time if they wanted to spend an entire day reading, they could do that If they wanted to spend an entire day completing their center tasks, they could do that but they got to choose how long they spent on each activity and then it also just kind of helps build some of that time management thing. So, hopefully that We might be able to do. Like I said, a whole other sort of like session talking all about centers. I'm just your questions guys make me so excited because like I said, I love talking about reading. I love encouraging and supporting teachers in the classroom and it is just so fun to have these conversations and it just makes me so excited to like think about how great and amazing this next school year is going to be for you guys. So, I'm going to go ahead and end this live but thank you so much for all of you that stuck with me all the way until the very end. I originally thought this was going to be about 25 minutes. So, I will try my best to keep them a little bit shorter but I am so glad that you I'm so glad that you guys join me and I will see you next Wednesday live and we will post a couple links like I said to the calendar as well as the the literacy block schedules in the Facebook group and continue asking questions and continuing encouraging each other. I just love the community that is already established in this group. You guys are amazing and I will talk to you soon.
