A "Yay Moment"

Ever since watching the Jim Henson's TV series "The Storyteller" as a nerdy 10 year old, I have loved stories and have been wanting to really tell a story to my class since day 1. I read to them everyday after lunch from a picture book and this engages the vast majority but until today I hadn't told them a good, old fashioned story.

I had read the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" to my 7 year old son the night before from a book and he really enjoyed it. So I thought why not give it a go with room 14?

I localised it to make it a bit more relevant to the kids (eg. the prince was a successful rugby league player) and it really worked. The whole class was totally engaged, some of the boys had never been so engaged in a story; to the point where the one boy who is rarely capable of sitting still long enough to follow a story was crying out "You see girls, that's what will happen to you!". Eyes were wide, faces looked worried and shocked in the right places. The transformation of prince into beast was greeted with a round of applause.

A few girls recognised the story as "Beauty and the Beast" but this didn't seem to stop them from enjoying it again.

Now, what to read next?

What can I do with the one slow reader in my guided reading groups?

In as couple of my guided reading groups, I have readers who are processing the texts much more slowly than the other readers in the group. Consequently, they are reading much more slowly and finishing texts much later than the others in their group. This is creating a problem in my management of the guided session. Do I cut them off before they have finished? Do we all wait patiently? 

Suggested remedies included:

putting them down a group

• child wont be challenged by the text and therefore may make less progress.

reading the same text before class

• child may see this as a punishment. The child also often arrives late.

having the child become aware of their reading speed 

• could be quite easily achieved as a post reading activity. Would she hear her "slowness"?

encourage a buddy reading time

• easily do-able. Paired with a more fluent reader could enable her quickly to compare speeds.