Read to Self: This is when students read the books in their book bags independently. This means for a period of time they are looking at their books from reading group, practicing books at their level, and reading the words and pictures. This time should be a quiet time with no talking to other students. Often first graders will whisper read to themselves as they are reading their books. I encourage rereading of stories during this time to practice and enjoy reading.
Handwriting: One of their morning jobs might include a handwriting sheet. Each day we take a different letter to focus on and practice writing. This is a job that students should be able to do very independently while I am pulling small reading groups to work with.
Journal writing: This is what students do when they first get to class in the morning. They can write about anything they want! It is a chance for kids to settle into the morning and spend some time with the ideas in their head. It is often a time when students write about what they did the night before, how their morning went, things they like, etc. In September we really practiced getting "words and pictures" in the journal. In October, we are a little more focused on getting 3 sentences down about a single topic. While this has proved to be a little more challenging for the kids, I am already seeing great things taking place in their little journals. The writing homework is somewhat like this in nature- a chance for students to practice writing about their day and their life.
More Read to self time on the carpet. Often times after they have done a good jobs with this it turns into buddy reading time around the room- which is always a favorite way to read books!
There are other things that happen in the morning such as word work (when students sort words based on word families or beginning letters or sounds, etc), Reading Response (when students write in their composition notebooks about something we read together or something they read independently during read to self time), and shared reading (when we all look at the same piece of print together- I have a copy and they have a copy and we read it together- sometimes we look for word families, some times we practice fluency, sometimes we discuss comprehension, and other times it is simply to enjoy reading). Of course there are other times when I do a mini lesson at the carpet about a skill in reading. It is hard to capture all the small moments of the morning literacy block, but trust me, we are hard at work! The students have been practicing their independent student skills (stay on task quietly) so that I can be working with smaller more focused groups on specific student needs and abilities.
Take Care!
Mrs. Weathers
