Becoming more organized!

Last week I finally started really getting to work with my group of students. I introduced their new weekly sight words and we began working with their weekly sight word readers. I only got to introduce their sight word readers on Thursday, when we had another snow day. So, we did not get to continue our work on Friday. Since we were also on a one-hour delay this morning, I did not have as long as I usually do to have small groups. Today, we began with a review of each of the five new sight words from last week. I did not introduce any new words because they only had two days to practice them last week. I am using the strategy of constant time delay with the students that I described in last week's post. Basically, I flash all five words to each student. I ask them not to guess the word if they don't know it, I tell them the word after waiting for 3 seconds. I do not want them learning the words incorrectly by guessing random words. Using my chart (attached) I give them a (+) if they read the word correctly and a (-) if they read the word incorrectly. This week, 4 of the 6 students read all five words correctly. Ted missed "the", which is the word he missed last week, and Noah missed "and" and "of". Noah was absent last week and therefore did not practice reading them with us. After reviewing the words, we used our sight word readers from last week, read them aloud using echo reading, highlighted the sight words in the book, and answered comprehension questions about the book. I jotted down field notes throughout this lesson and was even able to include some of my own comments on important things I noticed as I was watching the students read and answer questions. I noticed that all students seemed very distracted today. I do not know if it was because of the delay, but I will keep a close watch on this. We were constantly doing something in our group, so I they did not have time to get bored. I am curious if I will notice this often?

This week I feel like I am becoming more organized as I am gathering data. I am keeping a notebook to jot down field notes, comments, questions, and ideas. From our forum discussions I have decided to take my classmate's suggestion and keep a binder, so that I can also keep up with artifacts from the students, checklists, the constant time delay data sheet, consent forms, assent forms, surveys, interviews, etc. This has made me feel so much more confident because I have a system for everything I am doing. I am also going to start writing up my notes after each day so I can review and reflect on what happened. This will help me sort through information as I go.

I am attaching my constant time delay data sheet that I am using to record how students are doing when reading their sight words.

Date: 1/30/13	Ted	Jon	Ben	Ellen	Nicole	Noah
a	+	+	+	+	+	Abs.
the	-	+	+	+	-	Abs.
of	+	-	-	+	+	Abs.
to	+	+	+	-	+	Abs.
and	+	+	-	+	+	Abs.

Date: 2/4/13	Ted	Jon	Ben	Ellen	Nicole	Noah
a	+	+	+	+	+	+
the	-	+	+	+	+	+
of	+	+	+	+	+	-
to	+	+	+	+	+	+
and	+	+	+	+	+	-

 Still to come this week: Sight word games and activities