Guided reading groups

This week in the word work station students are focusing on words with long vowel sounds and practicing letter land words. In writing they are picking a prompt from the "write about this" app on the iPad to create a detailed writing piece focusing on having a beginning, middle and end. As well as, using describing words to make their stories interesting. We have been having the fifth grade, "tech experts" come down in the mornings to train the kids on apps that will be used during center time. In the read to self center, students are asking and answering questions in their readers response journals while reading a "just right" book. During guided reading, we are focusing on reading strategies and what to do when they get to a word they don't know. The questions they are practicing asking themselves when they get to tricky words are, "does it make sense? Does it sound right?" The guided reading groups book focus is on non fiction books this week and they are continuing to ask and answer questions before, during, and after reading the text. Students that are excelling at this are doing this as written comprehension using evidence from the text to support their answers. Students who need support with this concept verbally answer questions we come up with as a group and I guide them to how they can find the answers.