This chapter was very interesting to me to see the different strategies that are implemented in the older classrooms. Since my class is Kindergarten we have not started our guided reading or using basal books, but rather we are encouraging our students to express themselves.
When the students arrived in Kindergarten, many did not know how to express how they felt in their writing or as we are completing in class, a picture. This exact topic came up in our PLC meeting about how we were going to word our report cards for reading and literacy. One teacher wanted to put that they were drawing a story and then dictating a sentence to the teacher. This seemed that the students were writing a story, but in this case they are only dictating a sentence. The wording was then changed to an idea, so that the parents would not question what the students were completing in class.
Within the classroom the students are given time for free reading, they choose a book and then sit on the carpet. It is very interesting to see the students reading to each other. In some cases the same leveled readers are reading together. Sometimes a student is reading to another student. My most interesting observation is when a group of students that cannot read are looking at a book and making up the story using the pictures. This was a perfect example of a picture walk and the idea of the students reading the story through the pictures.
I know that guided reading is implemented in the classroom later on in the year, and I have already started to talk to me CT about the assessment process. The students have been assessed for their reading and the levels are used for Learning Lab, but from the results it was interesting to see the students interaction.
I think that it will be interesting to read other people’ s posts who are in the older grades and their interaction with their students in reading and literacy. I cant wait to see the improvement of my students based on the advances that they are already making in the classroom.
Cara Knight's Blog 
Hi Cara!
While I can’t comment on the upper grades because I too am in Kindergarten, there are some things that I love about your kindergarten class that I don’t really see in mine. I remember when I was placed with your teacher last year that there was ample time for students to sit on the carpet and pick out books to read from the shelf. The students had freedom to choose what they wanted and then to sit and enjoy the book. My class doesn’t have those opportunities. There is usually no time in the day for students to just sit and choose a book to look at and read. While students do pick out a new leveled book to take home every night, this is reading that is done at home and not in the classroom. All of the reading that takes place in the classroom is either read-alouds, guided reading, or independent reading of assigned books. And there is no shelf to display books for students. I think these aspects are so important in the classroom, especially in kindergarten to get students excited about books and reading, and I hate that my students are missing out!