K Teacher Taggart: December 2013

I love this time of year, all my students are finally reading! Everything that we have been working on really starts to click and their progress begins to soar. Since they have grown to have some independence it is the perfect time to start my mini lessons on coaching a buddy. Every day for 20 minutes I have my students practice reading with a partner that they are assigned to. The sooner I can teach my students that they can be a teacher to the person they are reading with the faster they climb in reading levels. I explain it to the kids that I am only one person and even though I would love to read with each and every one of them every day there is just not enough time. However, they are very lucky because they have a friend that sits right next to them when they read and they can be the teacher and help coach them! We talk a lot about how two brains are better than one. I made a song to help them remember what a good coach does.

We made stop signs to hold up when something our partner reads doesn't make sense or sound right. On the back of the stop sign is four things for a good coach to remember. These are sung about in the link above. I have my kids make motions to go with the song. I have also posted posters of the four tips for coaches in my classroom. In addition, I have created a coaches club. After I catch a student being a good coach to a buddy on five separate occasions they get to sign the board. These small changes have really helped a lot to get my students to pay attention while their partner is reading. I think kids learn the most when they are actually involved and part of the teaching process. They have really been having a lot of fun being the teacher!