I love teaching Reading. I knew that this year I would have to change the way I was teaching Reading. After all don't they always say, "In 3rd grade students go from learning to read to reading to learn"?
I kept thinking of different ways that I could help the students review the necessary phonics skills but also build their comprehension skills. How did I do all of that and then also allow the students to respond to the text and think critically?
I have spent a couple lot of hours surfing through Pinterest in order to find ways to assist my third graders and teach effectively. I decided to create a Reading Focus Wall (Like this and this). I took the features of these that I liked and created my own.
I ended up with a this! I love it! Below are the closeups of each section on my Reading Focus Wall.
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| Comprehension Strategy |
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| Essential Question |
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| Phonics Skill |
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| Currently Reading and Genre |
I found the small pocket chart that includes our weekly vocabulary words in the dollar section at Target! I love the color and bought a matching one for my Math wall an extra just simply because it was a dollar. I also found the dry erase pocket at in the same section (circa 2012). The Essential Question is posted on a Wipe-Off chart. The genre posters are from Our Sweet Succes. The comprehension posters are my own creation and can be found at my TPT store,
I am still working on the Phonics Skill Posters.
Overall I am loving my focus wall. Not only have I added the focus wall to support reading, but I have also started incorporating Interactive Reading Notebooks. So far this year, we are off to a slow start. But, hey, it's only the third week of third grade! I can't wait to share more later.
