Friday, September 30, 2011

One Month Down, Nine to GO!!

This past month has flown by! I have really enjoyed my fifth graders! What a big change to go from having a 2/3 combination to 5th grade! I feel like we are able to get so much accomplished each day!

My biggest struggle is trying to make sure that I meet the needs of all of my students. I teach two blocks of reading. Within those two blocks, I have 56 students. Out of the 56, I have about 10 that are reading at least one grade level below, if not more. How do I make sure those students feel successful and are able to succeed in fifth grade?

We have started a corrective reading program called SRA. I am hoping that this will help those students in need. We also started classworks this week. I also work in small group with those students on their assignments. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I also have some students that are WAY above grade level. I have worked with our AIG teacher to come up with a challenging curriculum for the year. We started a new word study program called Wordly Wise. It seems to be going very well, they really have to use high level thinking skills with the vocabulary words. My high group is also starting novel studies next week. We will start by reading one of my favorites, Number the Stars.

I am now trying to figure out what I need to do to challenge all of my kids that fall in the middle. I am using various websites to enrich their learning throughout the day.

I would love suggestions!

Thanks! :)