Guided Reading Organization

I LOVE reading groups. It is seriously my favorite time of the day. It took me a few years to find my rhythm with them and to find out what style worked for my teaching personality. There are two things that I did this past year that changed the reading group game for me. The first was the organization of my materials and the second was my transitions. The transitions will be discussed in a later post.

As a side note- in my school, we used the Jan Richardson Guided Reading System lesson plans and exercises. We used leveled reading books and tested students 4 times a year to see if they met benchmark. This meant that my reading group time had to be very organized and routine.

So let's talk about the bins I used.

The Student Bins 

At each student's spot was a bin filled with all the materials they needed. This was a total time saver and game changer! Inside the bins were.... 

* 1 small dry erase board 

* 1 dry erase marker & eraser 

* 1 pencil (marked with tape so that it never walked away from the table) 

* 1 eraser 

* 1 set of letter cards for making words 

* 1 Halloween finger for pointing, finding sight words, and tracking for those low babies. 

The Teacher Bins 

Each group was randomly assigned a color. Each group had a matching color bin. Each rotation, I just pulled the bin which made for a fast transition. My materials could be put away, pulled out, and I could meet the students on the carpet in less than 2 minutes. I know because I timed the transitions and I almost always beat them ha! Inside these bins were.... 

* leveled set of books 

* lesson plans 

* 1 notebook for each student 

* any supplemental materials which changed depending on the book. 

Guided Reading Routine & Classroom Management 

Here is why I loved the student bins so much. When it was the kids turn to come to group, they knew to sit down and get their white board and dry erase markers out of the their bins. They practiced writing sight words when I wasn't there yet or I decided what words they would work on. This became a very fast and VERY efficient 2-3 minutes. Then they would out their supplies away and they would be ready to read. At the end reading group 3 days a week, students would work on writing or they would build words using these letters. So all the supplies they would need were at their finger tips which made for fast transition time between activities so I could squeeze every ounce of learning in to the time I wanted. 

How do you organize your reading groups? Any tips or tricks that have been game changers for you?