Guided Reading for Parents

Hey friends! I am really excited to share with how I communicate with parents about guided reading!

First, I keep everything organized in a binder. It contains all the letters that I send home to parents at back to school night, during conferences and throughout the year. The key to guided reading success at home is COMMUNICATION! 

At back to school night I give my parents some information.

I give them the form on the left that explains what guided reading is. 

Let's face it, most of us didn't know much about guided reading until college or until we did it - hands on! So why do we expect parents to understand guided reading?!

In my school we use DRA, but here is why I give my parents both DRA and GRL levels. 

when parents go to look for books through scholastic, sometimes they only give one or the other. A parent may pass by a great book series because they think it isn't ok for their kid! 

My parents become fluent with both DRA and GRL. 

I send home scholastic notes that give hints and helpful series for each level. 

One thing I stress to parents is that there is no LOW reader at the start of the year. I let them know that they are ENTRY level readers. I don't want parents worrying from day one thinking their child is a low reader when they are right where they are supposed to be! 

I also only give them a correlation chart up to level 28/M

I don't want the pressure given to parents that they think their child has to get further than that in a year. If a student comes in higher - great. I don't mention it. 

As my littles make it through the different levels, I send home a certificate for them! I let them know how proud I am of them and from what level to what level they went from. 

Throughout the year, I send home letters with the students. I take mini running records with students weekly (or I try to make it weekly)

I fill out this sharing success form. It lets parents know how they are doing in specific aspects of reading. I let them know that they are working on it, right on track or have something mastered. I let them know about reading instructionally with me or independent on their own. 

I also give them the same few pages at conference time, and I also give the full page sheets to parents at conferences as well. I want them to have the information. 

This is the form I use with my students that start with written responses. 

This is the form I use with my students that are at a level 3- until the reach written responses. 

I want parents to know what their child is successful at, AND what they can use help with. 

I leave a spot for notes so that I can put information that I noticed during that running record. 

If a child is NOT reading at their benchmark level, I send home their certificate to praise that child for trying so hard AND then I send home the WHAT LEVEL XX MEANS.

Parents often think that a certificate means they are on track. Many parents think that their child is a gifted reader. We all do that, but let's be honest, parents don't always understand that their child may not be reading at the level they should be. They don't know how to help or what they are supposed to be reading. 

I send home the larger sheet and write at the top, this is what our current benchmark is and we are working to get so and so there. I want them to see what their child SHOULD be reading, but still celebrate their child's current success. 

I even do the sharing success sheets after doing the DRA tests. It is a perfect way to be sure I get them done while I am testing since we know we don't do groups during testing time! 

Seriously, look at his face when he got to grade level!!!! I don't know that his smile could be any bigger!

This is what my award usually looks like when I send it home. My kids LOVE when I have out my sharing success page because they get a certificate. 

If this is something that you think you would be interested in, please check out my pack. I have the separated by level 3/4 or level C up through a level 14 / H

Pack 2 is levels I/16 up through a level 28 M. 

This is my bundle. It has all the levels from 3/4 - C/D up through a 28/m

If you would like to see my periscope about this, check out my you tube video below. I mention where to get your freebies and peoples packs that I use for intervention with guided reading.

I will be giving away a copy of my bundle pack. Leave a comment below with your name, email and about how you communicate about guided reading to your parents. I will pick one winner on Friday morning at 8 am! 

Congrats to Erica from I Teach Elementary! I will be emailing you today! :)

Have a great night! 

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Wordless Wednesday - Do you Redo?

Hey friends! 

I am linking up with Miss Decarbo for Wordless Wednesday! 

Now, you know that I can't be wordless, that just doesn't happen. Today feels like my first day of break. It is after midnight and I am still up (read as - I will pay for that when Reid wakes up in 5 hours) 

I had camp, vacation, the Vegas trip and my illness so I haven't had a chance to do nothing that others expect of me. We start back to school in one month. One month. UGH. Time-why don't you go this fast during the year?! 

Anyway, 

My question for all of you is how often do you redo your things you make? I am looking at this pack below and I am wanting to redo some of these. Yes, it would be easier to just leave them. They are cute enough, and no one would know the difference, but me. I have awesome new clip art and new ideas, but I am tired. I need a break, but I want to make new stuff. 

Do I leave it, or make new stuff? 

What do you do? 

How often do you make things new? 

Be sure to link up with Christina.

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How to Lock Down Images on a PDF using a Mac Computer

Hello friends
I wanted to share my periscope video that is going to expire this evening. It is on:

I know that many people that create use awesome clip art. We are so lucky to have such amazing artists out there that share their products with us. Their terms of use are pretty clear that we need to protect their work from others using it without paying for it.

When I first started creating, I thought I was doing it right. I was creating in powerpoint, and then saving it as a pdf - so I was secure - right? WRONG!

People are still able to go into a pdf and take images off of your creations and use them!
We don't want that to happen. One, someone is taking something you made, or a clip artist made and using it as their own. That just stinks. You may be like me though, and you honestly thought you were doing it right.

I am going to post my periscope of how to quickly do this using a mac. I am also doing a step by step of how to do this as well. If you want the video scroll down below. If you you want the step by step, keep reading!

Here is the video:



Please leave any questions you may have below.

I will try to figure out how to do this using a PC too. My husband has a dinosaur pc, so I will play around with it and see if I can help!

Have a great night!

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Bright Ideas - Using Copy Requests

Hi guys! 

Long time no blog. I pinky promise to get better! 

Starting today!!!

I wanted to share a bright idea with you today. 

I used to spend so much time explaining to parents what buttons to push on the copier. They didn't understand what collated and uncollated meant. They didn't know to push the copy output to find that option. They didn't know that I needed really dark text on my copy and to find it you went to the image quality button. 

So, I made this little sheet and had all the info with the buttons they needed to push. OH. MY. WORD. What a time saver! I keep all of my copy requests clipped to the original, and just pull it out and put it in my volunteer bin. 

It is pretty easy for them. I haven't had any parents come back confused. The awesome thing is that if they are in the copy room, and are not sure - another teacher can help and EASILY see what I truly wanted. BEST CHOICE EVER!!!

I hope you have found some great bright ideas here  - and find using a copy request a time saver too. Do you use them? I would love to hear about how you help make life easier for those parent volunteers! 

For more bright ideas more than 150 different bloggers this month, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

Be sure to click the links in my signature to visit me on Pinterest, TPT, Instagram or to sign up for Bloglovin!!! 

XOXO

Have a great day!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Monday Made It - themed rainbow decor posters

Today is the last Monday I am off, sadly. We will be back to school on Wednesday. Summer is over. I cry. I am so sad that I won't be able to lay around in my pjs until noon. Oh the life of a teacher.

Are you going to be buying at the sale on Wednesday? I am SO excited to buy a few goodies that I didn't realize I wanted during the last sale. In fact, I hope next year TPT does the same thing because I am going to be buying things that many of my instagram friends posted. It was nice to see what they got, because I am ready for this sale!!!

I thought I would say THANK you to all my TPT followers and my IG friends for being so faithful, and amazing. I am beyond grateful for all of your support. So to say thank you, I made a freebie for you!!!!

I made these adorable color posters for you all! I hope that you find either the black background or the white ink friendly background fun to use in your classroom decor!! They are a THANK YOU for all you have done for me this year!!!! Click on either picture to scoop up the ones that will best suite your needs! 

If you like the freebie, I hope you will find these number posters helpful in matching your room decor. I can't wait to hang these in my room. I am thinking that maybe, just maybe I will not replace them next year!!! Click on either picture to check out either the printer friendly or black version. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Number-posters-1-20-with-ten-frame-ink-friendly-background-1397522

I have also included the days of the week in both black and the white version. 

 Why stop there - right? I will be doing my months of the year too! Click on either to see black or white versions! 

Last year, I had the cutest bucket note kiddo labels. I got SO many compliments and people asking me to put them on my TPT store, but time got away from me, and I just forgot. So this year, I made a set for you all and a way to only print the ones that you want without wasting ink. I am also going to be posting rainbow ones that are all the same color so it is more uniform for you! I hope to have the rainbow version for you tomorrow for your wishlist for the big sale!!!

Now, I am off to cut out about seven hundreds pages of lamination!!!!

When do you go back?

4

Throw Back Thursday - Focus Wall

Hey everyone! 

I was stalking Instagram and was talking to a few friends that are NOT common core. (I am not, so it is really hard to find materials that I can use) Many people make them seasonal, and that is great if you are a common core state, but if you are in VA, no such luck. So anyway, most of the things I make are general so that I can use them no matter what. 

I use a focus wall throughout the year during my morning meeting. My students love it because when I ask questions from something from a month ago, they know they can usually find the answer on the focus wall. It gives them a sense of ownership and confidence that is quite helpful. It is funny when I switch them, because you will see them scanning the board for something that I took down. Usually though, they remember it. It is really exciting to see! 

These are anchor charts or posters that I put up and rotate depending on when I teach them. We review a quick five minutes so kids don't forget during the year. 

The Tattooed Teacher Blog made the types of text posters. 

This one, is up all year round. I let the kids do it when they want and during snack they can talk to me or a friend about their thinking. We do this as a monthly lesson, but continue to focus on it. 

Click on the picture above for the link to my freebie!

This is another freebie that I have in my store for Character Traits. This is so hard for kids, so I try to use very obvious books at first then, we start to synthesize our thinking as they grow as readers. 

This is also blown up for my actual teaching of this concept and we have a sorting activity that we do. You can laminate and write right over this. I sometimes put it into a PDF and blow it up on my promethian and we write on it. 

These are just a few of the posters that I put on the focus wall. 

We study patterns in first grade and they need to know the actual wording of them instead of ABC, AABB etc, so I made this chart for the focus wall. Click on the picture for the freebie. 

I find a lot of the focus wall posters or I make them. The graphing one was awesome that I found. I don't know the link but if you search freebie graphing it should show up. 

These are my comprehension strategy posters, Click to be taken to them as well. 

These are my Grammar Posters that I use on my focus wall. They very helpful when I am introducing each of our grammar units. 

Lastly, this is my Witty Writer's checklist. 

This is also a freebie in my classroom. I post this up on my focus wall as well. 

Click on the picture for the freebie! 

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