[joymt78]

I feel like I have an excellent handle on the classroom rotations through (my version) of the Daily Five, but I am struggling for activities when I am in my small groups.

Our school uses the Leveled Readers from our curriculum, so I have been using those. But I'm lost as to how to enrich this 20 minute lesson with my groups.

What I'm doing now:
Monday: Picture walk, predict what the story will be about, identify genre, discuss vocab
Tuesday: Whisper read (at this time I will be listening/conferencing with students and taking anecdotal notes)
Wednesday: I'm thinking about doing a flip book or something about story elements or using the weekly skill? Still unsure.
Thursday: ?? Comprehension skills by having questions about the story?
Friday: I do whole group Scholastic News lesson.

I have been doing the same schedule week after week. Is this typical of guided reading lessons? Is there more that I can do with my students?

This is my first year teaching, so it's all so new to me. I just want to get the most out of this mini-lesson and I don't want the students to get bored with the schedule.

[Paolo]

I think each lesson will be somewhat different depending on the needs of the group, the richness of the text, and the learning focus of the lesson. A new book from Stenhouse, Guiding Readers, offers lots of ideas for small group lessons.

It suggests planning a three day sequence for lesson planning, which is sort of in a nutshell:

Day 1: Text introduction, "first draft" reading, first response
Day 2: Reread for comprehension strategy focus; "big idea" discussion
Day 3: Reread for word level strategy focus; written response

There's still a structure, but it's still flexible enough to meet differing group needs and instructional goals.