Guided Reading ~ 3 Tools to add to your Student's Toolkit

Hello again,  It's Christina from Hanging Around In Primary.  I am honoured to be blogging once again here at Who's Who and Who's New.  This time I want to share with you 3 tools that I put in the hands of my students to increase engagement during my Guided Reading sessions.

1.  Reading Phone/Whisper Phones

Many years ago I was introduced to these phones at a reading workshop at our board office.  I was hooked on them from the moment I saw how they worked.   When I was teaching my small group of firsties this is what I would hear every..single..lesson!: "he is reading to loud!"  "I can't hear myself"  "can you read quieter!"

Enter the reading phones - you can't read with a loud voice into them because you will hurt your ears. Students immediately lower their voices and use a whisper voice.  Now everyone can sit at the same table and read to themselves without complaint.  Yeah!  The only thing I need to say now is not to lick the phone or put your mouth on it ....ewww!  Thank goodness for lysol wipes.

2.  Finger lights

I LOVE finger lights for tracking text.  They are a 4 for a $1.00 at the Dollar Store and worth every penny.  When students are reading they slip on a finger light to track the text.  They can light up each word so they know exactly where they are on the page.  These lights have worked wonders for my students who are still struggling with word awareness.

 3.  Whiteboards

If you have been to my blog before you will know about my fondness for whiteboards.  I use them all.the.time. During Guided Reading we would use them for pre and post reading activities. I love that they allow me to save paper.  There is way too much paper floating around the classroom as it is. I often snap a photo of a response I want to save and place it in their digital portfolio on Seesaw.

I hope you will consider adding these things to your student's tool kits for Guided Reading.  You WILL notice an increase in engagement and it will make your job a lot easier!

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Are you interested in learning more about how I teach Guided Reading and what's in my Teacher Tool Kit?  Head over to my blog to find a companion post to this one.  Click below to head over to my blog.  See you there!

Until next time,