Reading

The year I taught second grade, the second and third grade reading blocks occurred at the same time. The block was one hour long. This allowed us to break up the 2 second grade and 2 third grade classes into smaller groups. We were able to pull in a Kindergarten TA, two Title I teachers and the school librarian to work with one group each. This allowed all students to be in small groups that would target their needs.

I taught a group of 8 students during reading. This group consisted of 7 second grade students and 1 third grade students. At the beginning of the year, they were all reading on a beginning of second grade level. By the end of the year, they were reading at a mid-third grade level.

Everyday, we started with fluency practice. I used the six-minute solution method. Students worked with a partner. One partner read out loud, while the other partner followed along with the passage in a sheet protector and marked any errors with a dry erase marker. I kept time: 1 minute. Then the reader marked the number of correct words read on their own chart and the partners switched. This took a few days to get used to, but by the second or third week we were working on fluency, the students could get through both readers in about three minutes.

Fluency practice was followed by a focus on our group book. We began the year with the __Aunt Eater Mystery__ series, then moved into __Horrible Harry__ and __Nate the Great__ books, followed by the __Magic Tree House__ Series. We began by checking comprehension questions, which had been homework from the night before, and discussing any issues students had with the questions. Then we worked with the next section of our book. We discussed vocabulary words for the next section and drew a picture for each word. Then, we read aloud the next section. The students in the group took turns reading about a page at a time. When we finished the section, the students practiced summarizing what we had just read and then got with a partner and moved to their own space in the classroom and took turns reading a page each of the chapter out loud to their partner. I moved around the room and listened to each group. For homework, students had comprehension questions based on the section we had read.