Welcome to our Flipped Reading Block Book Study! This weeks questions will be about Chapters 3 and 4: Whole Group Guided Practice as a Follow-Up to Flipped Lessons AND Guiding and Facilitating Instruction in Small Groups.  As always, we encourage you to link up your posts if you are reading this book.

Let’s get started! I am so excited about the at-home practice/at-home lesson component of the flipped classroom.  My mind is abuzz with all of the ways to present important instruction that will expedite actual student driven learning.  The author mentions I Do, We Do, You Do.  This well-researched practice is the most effective way for children to gain knowledge and commit it to memory.   When they do it themselves, it will stick!

In Chapter 3, Gina Pasisis makes a good case for providing practice students can access from home.  Students can view and review lessons multiple times, giving struggling learners, especially, the opportunity to be more prepared for learning.  Side note: I keep in mind that whatever is sent home will also have to be provided at our computer/ipad station during each class day for students who do not have access from home.   I plan to implement this independent pre-lesson the first and last 30 minutes each day, or during assessment and individual assessment time after lunch each day.

The first at-home lessons will be about the alphabet and sequence of letters taught.  In our reading series, Journeys, the first few weeks lessons are about letters a-z.  Lessons will be short with a video of myself explaining how to do our alphabet chart chant, as well as our slideshow and any video links that will help students learn to sequence and recognize letters and sounds.  These should be simple to implement.  Later on, I will be assigning informational videos to help students gain background knowledge about topics from nature, community, math and more.  The possibilities are endless!

 

We use Whole Brain Teaching structures in my classroom, as well as structures from the Daily 5 and Kagen.   Students will learn talk and turn, think-pair-share, and other strategies and become automatic with the structures after only a few weeks.

Students need every opportunity to build background knowledge.  With the option to view and review at home, as well as practice with the whole group (we do) they will come to small group with the tools to truly participate in a discussion and apply the learning.  More reflective questions can be asked of them because they have not only the text from our book to draw on, but their own new found experiences.

I have had reading clubs set up in my classroom for 20 years.  Students are expected to pair off with a partner and read from their book tubs when morning work is finished every day.  An example of a guiding question  would be for them to listen for a particular beanie baby strategy we have practiced during small group instruction.  They can tally on a post-it the number of times they noticed their friend using the strategy, or put a puzzle piece in a puzzle for each time the strategy is used.

Here is a freebie for “get your mouth ready”.

 

An InLinkz Link-up