What is guided reading? Very simply, guided reading is small group literacy instruction. It's purpose it to provided guided instruction to students at their level with a focus on their specific needs. Like other centers, grouping is done based on an individual students needs at the moment, meaning groupings are fluid and constantly changing. The students I work with in my Blue Group on Fiction may not be in the same group when I switch to Nonfiction. How do you decide who is it what group? A variety of strategies can be used to determine who goes in what group. Primarily, I use the F&P levels as determined by the Benchmark Assessment (BAS) to determine my students reading levels. Next I think about other specific strengths and weaknesses: who reads independently, who works well together, what skills do we need to improve, what tools and strategies are missing in their toolboxes. I then use those strengths and weaknesses to build my centers for the week. What center
What is a digital native? A digital immigrant? In his article, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1 , Marc Prensky identifies the new generation of students as "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games, and the internet. Prensky labels those of us who were not born into the digital world but have dabbled in it as digital immigrants. His article explains that teachers, as digital immigrants, have to adjust in order to teach their digital native students. This is not the first time I have heard of the digital immigrant vs. digital native argument, as a teacher of mostly K-3 graders I am significantly more advanced in years. My students were born in a different time, things have certainly changed since I was a Kindergartner. Students are now required to use technology at younger ages. Often times we assume they come to us with knowledge of technology and computers that they don't have. Yes, they maybe be digital natives but that doesn'