Back to School Basics: Guided Reading Rotations Schedule

During Guided Reading, I normally have two adults in the room: myself and a parent volunteer or an impact teacher hired by the district. If my guided reading time is during a part in the day where I cannot have a parent volunteer or an impact teacher  then ... I change my schedule! Having two adults in the room is imperative to the continued success of my class. This is because every day my students need to be seen by an adult. They deserve this. I would consider it a shame if they went the entire school day without some small group and one-on-one time with a teacher. Therefore, my guided reading rotations go something like this. To download click here:

Keep the following in mind when reading through my chart.

Shape groups are Homogenous - Kids are with adults when they are in their shape groups. Instruction is more rigorous because it is meant to be guided (an activity they couldn't easily do on their own). 

Color groups are Heterogenous - Kids are independent when they are in their color groups. They can work with a partner to complete puzzles, games, read together, play computer games, go to the listening center.

Each child is assigned to BOTH a color group and a shape group. (More detail)

Before I start guided reading I have usually already taught a sorting unit in Math so I sit the class on the carpet and say these exact words: "Now I'm going to sort you all by shape or by color. Remember when you're sorting by color; shape doesn't matter. When you're sorting by shape; color doesn't matter. So listen for your color OR listen for your shape." (For a few weeks I have the kids wear necklaces that have their color group and shape group written for them so they can reference it).

Here is how the classroom rug seating plays into the rotation schedule I have provided above.

Monday - Rotation One

When I send the triangle team to the teacher's table for guided reading and the rectangle team to the independent table the only teams left on the carpet are they yellow team and the green team. Remember these teams are heterogeneous ability groups. They get assigned to the listening center and the computer  games.

Here is what the second rotation looks like:

Monday - Second Rotation

When I send the circle team to the teacher's table and the square team to the independent table, the only teams left on the carpet are the red team and the orange team. This allows me to send them to the listening center and the computer games now. 

Every two days every team has rotated through each center and I'm ready to prep for another set of activities and assignments. This thoughtful and well-balanced system was passed down to me by a mentor teacher my first year of teaching. I've kept it every year since ... because it works!

Back to School Basics: Guided Reading Folders : Differentiated Instruction

Organization Help: Once school routines are underway, I level my Kindergarten class into four guided reading groups: high, medium, low, and focus (RTI) groups based on their beginning literacy assessments in phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, and writing. (More detail) In order to make differentiating instruction for each level more organized, I keep a tub behind my guided reading table with four folders squared away: one for each group.

Guided Reading Organization
One folder for each leveled group
Keep activities inside each group's folder

I use shape groups because they have to learn their shape names anyway so why spend class time naming and referring to "animal groups" or other silly, cute terms? I'd rather keep things simple. I pull out each folder when I see each group during rotations. This folder system makes sub plans easy too because I simply state to pull out a lesson from each shape groups' folder. Saves me from sticking post it notes all over different piles of paper or books in the room! 

Each leveled group has a folder that contains differentiated
activities for their reading level. 

In the picture shown above, the Triangle group's folder contains 3 guided reading leveled readers from Houghton Mifflin, their beige dictation book ( I let them decorate their cover with markers) where I ask them to spell CVC words, or CCVC and CVCC words to practice their segmenting skills. Also, we see a stack of phonics worksheet where they sort the sounds for "P". These activities will typically last that group two weeks because we also do hands on activities/games/sorts, etc that don't require paper/pencil. When I notice a folder getting emptier, I use my teacher prep time to makes copies, find leveled books to put in there, etc. 

These folders could also make it easy to take anecdotal notes for students. Here are the anecdotal note pages I use for my guided reading groups. 

Anecdotal Notes for Guided Reading

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