P-2

Balanced Literacy
Lab Experience

2nd Grade
Ms. Abbott and Ms. Chomicki

Jennifer Farrell-Rottman
Chief of Schools 1
 Norms for Learning
● Be present for the entire session
(No cell phones, email, side conversations during work time)

● Honor time limits and signals to reconvene

● Equity of Voice
● Respect different viewpoints and experiences
● Vegas Rules – what we say in meetings stays in our family.
● Trust the process

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 Ice Breaker
Red: Tell us about a teacher in your school who is amazing. Why are they amazing?

Purple: What is one thing that you learned from a fellow colleague?

Brown: What is one thing that happened this week that made you proud?

Yellow: Tell us about one student who inspires you?

Blue: Wild Card! Pick any of the above questions to answer!

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 Red

Purple

Brown

Yellow

Blue

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 Agenda
8:30-8:35 Opening

8:35-8:50 Ice Breaker

8:50-10:50 Learning

10:50-11:15 Observation

11:15-11:30 Debrief

11:30-12:00 Professional Read

12:00-1:00 Planning

1:00-3:00 Goal Setting and Next Steps

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 Today’s Objectives
In alignment with the larger district P-2 Balanced Literacy initiative:
● Actively participate in a lab experience to observe, plan for, reflect and analyze the
value of this experience in moving educators’ practice forward.
● Implement the instructional moves within a guided reading lesson to move students’
learning forward.
● Reinforce our understanding of the role of professional learning communities in
improving the education of students

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 Small Group: The Five Reading Tenets
● match the individual reader
● teach toward independence
● teach strategies explicitly so that readers become
proficient and skilled
● value time spent, volume, and variety of reading
● follow predictable structures and routines

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Austin / Belmont-Cragin Committed to the Promise of Every Student
 Context of School
- Level 2+
- 435 students
- 42.5% African American ,
43.2% Hispanic , 9.2% white ,
1.1% Asian ,3.9 % other
- 67.4% Low Income
- 13.3% Diverse Learners
- 11.5% Limited English
Principal Folasade Adekunle
Assistant Principal Anne Donatelli

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 Context of Classroom
Room 208
- 21 students
- 9 English Language Learners
- 1 student who speaks only Spanish
- 2 Diverse Learners
- One student requiring one-on-one support
- Reading Levels range from D to >Z.
- 2 students receiving MTSS interventions for behavior
- Our class operates using flexible seating for most of
the day.
- Students are at their individual desks for no more
than 20-30 minutes throughout the entire day. Most of
the day is run in center rotations or through flexible
seating and small groups.
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Curriculum: Balanced Literacy
▶ Mentor texts - Read aloud/ think aloud
▶ Heggerty (whole group and in small groups as needed)
▶ Fountas and Pinnell Readers
▶ Daily 5 (pieces are incorporated)
▶ Reader’s Workshop
▶ Common Core Progress Textbook
▶ Teachers Pay Teachers
▶ Reading AZ small group literacy texts
▶ Writer’s Workshop (based on Lucy Calkins)
▶ Common Core created materials
◦ Organizers
◦ Worksheets
◦ Assessments
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 Context of Classroom
Classroom Structures and
Routines
▶ Student Led Morning Meeting
(abbreviated)
▶ Phonemic Awareness (Heggerty and
Weekly Word practice & strategies)
▶ Reader’s Workshop - Read Aloud/Think
Aloud/ Respond to reading
▶ Independent Reading
▶ Centers - Guided Reading Groups,
Student accountability

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 Ms. Abbott’s Classroom

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 Ms. Abbott’s Classroom

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 Ms. Abbott’s Classroom

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 What Now? The Process...
Meeting 1 : Agnes
and Chelsea met to
go over data and
share insights about
their students and
curriculum.

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 Guided Reading Groups
- Weekly progress
monitoring
- students are pulled in
flexible groups.
- Groups based upon
student needs
- Groups of higher level
students are less
flexible.

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 What Now? The Process...
Meeting #1- Agnes observed Chelsea- Debrief and feedback
Meeting #2-Chelsea observed Agnes-Debrief and feedback
Meeting #3- Agnes observed Chelsea- Debrief, feedback,
goal setting, professional reading
Meeting #4 and Meeting #5- continued observations,
informed planning, professional reading, analyzed
observation data to create focus for learning

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 Goals
Chelsea’s Goals
▶ Create student accountability in order
to maximize independent productivity
during centers.
▶ Maximize the guided reading time to
ensure all three essential elements in
guided reading are met with each
group that is seen by teacher.
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Agnes’s Goals:
● Allow more choice, flexibility at
each center for independent and
partner work.
● Differentiate independent tasks
based on individual needs.
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 What Now? The Process...
Professional texts used to guide the learning:

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 What Now? The Process...

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 Informed Planning

Continuous Cycle
Feedback
Observations
Professional Reading

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 Informed Planning
Materials Used
▶ Assessment and Progress Monitoring
Data
▶ Behaviors to Notice and Support
(Fountas and Pinnell)
▶ Guided Reading Planning Templates
▶ Guided Reading Planning and Tracking
Template
▶ Current Literacy Curriculum

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 Professional Reads
● 154-155
● 160
● 165-267

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 NWEA connection
NWEA is approaching quickly and students will come into
contact with difficult articles in this test. The students
will need to revisit the text in order to search for answers,
find evidence, and form opinions. This is similar to tasks
students will be asked to complete on NWEA assessment,
so we are reinforcing and mastering this skills.

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 Reading Strategies

Pink
sheet
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 Then ...
6 center groups and 6 rotations daily
- Teacher felt pressure to make sure she met with every group every day and observe
entire class to make sure students in independent centers were on task
- Guided reading lesson short (10-15 min) because of this
- Teacher time included as a rotation spot in guided reading centers
- Higher groups met with very infrequently
- Center groups started at same center each day in order to meet needs of guided
reading table

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 Now...
▶ 6 centers with flexible grouping (mixed ability) rotating using a checklist for
accountability
▶ Teachers table (guided reading) is seperate from student work centers rotation
▶ Teacher meets with 2-3 guided reading groups a day allowing for more focused
and purposeful planning and execution of a lesson tailored to student’s specific
needs (including the needs of high achieving students)
▶ Guided reading groups are not the same as center rotation groups (similar ability
pulled together for guided reading)
▶ Teacher allows more time and more focus on students at her table in order to
focus on the components of guided reading.
▶ Student accountability within independent center rotation increased due to
implementation of checklist and center notebooks
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 Choosing Text and Teaching Point
Focus Group- High Achieving
- Whole group focus: comparing and contrasting fairy tales
- Desire to level this with using Non Fiction text within guided reading
- Implementing new knowledge from Fountas and Pinnell- Teaching for Comprehension and Fluency in
order to choose an appropriate text to match the needs for high level readers and the teaching point
- Using Common Core Standards to drive instruction

Four Day Lesson

Day One and Two Teaching Point- Use new vocabulary to identify the main topic of each paragraph in a multi
paragraph text (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.2)

Day Three Teaching Point- Identify main purpose of a text (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.6)

Day Four Teaching Point - Write an opinion piece using the information directly from the article in order to
support their opinion. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.1)

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 Lesson Plan

Orange
sheet
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 Instructional Approach
Pay attention to:
▶ Explicit teaching point reflecting students’ specific needs.
▶ “Before, During, After” components with an emphasis on “Before Reading”
◦ Connection to previous learning
◦ Activating prior knowledge
◦ Frontloading vocabulary
◦ Text features
◦ Providing an explicit teaching point with modeling
◦ Setting a purpose for reading
▶ Post GR Task to reinforce independence and push for critical evaluation of the
article.

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 Time to move into the classroom...
▶ Observe the Lab Teacher
and take notes

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 Small Group Debrief
▶ Were you able to identify the “Before”, “During”, and “After”
Guided Reading components?
▶ What did you notice about them?
▶ Did students engage in productive struggle?
▶ What did Ms. Abbott do when students struggled?
▶ Was the objective explicitly stated?
▶ Was the skill modeled?
▶ Were students able to practice the skill?

Be prepared to share out “big ideas”

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 Debrief

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 Resources You Should Know About!
- Newsela.com
- https://newsela.com/articles/#/subject/science-and-math

- Read Works
- https://www.readworks.org/find-content#!s0:191935,191944/q:/g:/t:/s:/k:/cid:
/pt:/features:/staff_picks:191944/sel:/

- Teachers Pay Teachers - Freebies

- Checklist used by Abbott free on “Miss West Best” TPT

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 Professional Reads
● Front Cover
● 173 & 183
● 418-432
● 464

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 Planning Together
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.1
Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to
demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.1
Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

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 Google Site

Network 3 Committed to the Promise of Every Student

 Reflection Slip
Network 3 Survey
Google Form 1

Department of Literacy Self Assessment

Google Form 2

Department of Literacy Survey

Google Form 3
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 Next Steps
▶ Take a 45 minute lunch
▶ Proceed back to your home school to plan as a grade level
team
▶ Plan a guided reading lesson for a group in your class
▶ Set up one observation of a grade-band peer
▶ Take a video snippet of the planned guided reading lesson
you observed of your peer

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