Guided Reading Galore

No matter where you teach or how long you teach, you never feel like you have enough resources for your reading groups.  When you are planning lessons for small groups, you are planning for multiple grade levels.  A teacher with a typical class will plan for a minimum of three grade levels when writing reading group lesson plans.  This is if you have a typical class, there are many teachers that are writing plans for more than 3 grade levels.  Is it any wonder why teachers are always on the hunt for new resources to use with their groups?

Hunting for that many resources is time consuming plus when you find them it is often costly.  I have this bagged lettuce theory when it comes to planning lessons.  

You know how in the summer when you have all the time in the world, you buy a head of lettuce, veggies, and dressing to make a salad for your dinner.  You have time so you chop, slice, and dice to make your family a healthy salad.  But, when you have had one too many meeting before and after school, you still need to take your child to soccer practice, pick up your husband's shirts at the dry cleaners, and make dinner you will often find yourself grabbing one of those salad kits in a bag that has everything you need in one handy bag on your way home from school.   You are willing to spend a little more for convenience.  Your time is has value to you and you are willing to pay a little more for it.

Lesson planning often works the same way for me as grocery shopping. I am willing to pay a reasonable amount of money if resources, especially resources for my reading groups, are convenient and organized so I can easily find what I need. The time I save searching for materials has value to me. 

A site called Snap Learning recently contacted me.  As soon as I saw the resources and how it was organized, I knew that this site fell into my bag of lettuce theory of planning. This is exactly the type of site you need when you are looking for ways to save time when planning your lessons. I love the convenience of everything in one place and searchable.  Since it is online you can plan from home or school.  If you don't have enough copies of something, you can quickly login and make another copy of something because it is easy to navigate through the site.

Have you been a lucky recipient of Donor's Choose yet?  This would be the perfect project for that.  All of your students would benefit from this site.  Sometimes your PTA and reading specialist have funds to pay for a membership to a site like Snap Learning, too.

There are a variety of activities on Snap Learning that you can use with your reading group.  Teachers who love to integrate lessons will love the choices.  The picture above is a page from the teacher page and student page from the Solid, Liquid, and Gas for 2nd/3rd grade.

If you have a strict paper limit, you can insert the papers into a dry erase pocket or page protector.  

Add a sheet of cardstock to make the dry erase pocket or page protector sturdier. Add a writing page on the back so students can respond to their writing.

Click HERE to download the free writing papers.  There are 3 to choose from.

Want to find out more about Snap Learning? You can request a demo of the Snap Guided Reading program HERE 

Go check out the site!  They are currently having a Back to School sale until September 9th.




Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.