Guided Reading Fountas & Pinnell: Thoughts/Ideas

I made it! It's summertime and I'm alive! I miss my kids, BUT I DO NOT miss driving an hour one way to get to school! Overall reflecting on the year, I've grown a lot as a teacher and learned a lot thanks to Spring ISD putting Professional Development as a priority!
 I have a lot of books to read this summer and I've chosen to read Fountas & Pinnell's Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Students. I went to a training last summer that was based on this book so check out my old posts to read my reaction/thoughts about the training.

After Reading Ch.1 (What is Guided Reading?), I was reminded about some ideas from the training I went to. I also took note of some important concepts as well (I might even make an anchor chart for myself!).

• Write notes about students on notecards, then store them in a plastic recipe box for easy browsing.
• Since the goal in GR is to expose students to as many texts as possible in meaningful ways, have a basket of books that have been previously read in small groups so students can reread them independently (not in small group) and practice for fluency.
• It is alright to SOMETIMES do word work or an extension activity (drama, art, etc). However, it should not take up the time meant for kids to read. A large portion of time during a GR Small Group lesson should be the students reading, not the teacher talking or doing activities.
• GR Small Group lessons are meant to be based on problem-solving to increase comprehension and encourage deeper questioning and thinking.
• Objectives of lessons in a Small Group should be kept to a minimum (1 to 2).
• dynamic grouping, Dynamic Grouping, DYNAMIC GROUPING!!!!!
• Use big books and poems ALL week long! Now that STAAR is including poetry on the reading test, it is IMPERATIVE that lower level teacher introduce and expose the kids to poetry VERY OFTEN.