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Mary/PA - Welcome to this evening's Reading Recovery Meeting here at Teachers.Net. Tonight's topic is RAK; Roaming Around the Known.
tyylee - We had an inservice meeting today and a Speech and Language researcher spoke. She emphasized that children need to be able to retell stories, understand rhyming, and hear individual sounds in words before they can be successful with print. It really spoke to me about things we could so in Roaming.
Mary/PA - tyylee, I agree, language skills are so very important
tyylee - It made the point that we need to really teach the skill of hearing sounds and pushing the chips into the boxes before we ever get into filling the boxes with letters.
Mary/PA - The children who don't say much, or can't carry on a good conversation are usually the hardest to teach
Retrievers - Just started weds, completed 9 OS but some more to go, have some difficult teacher schedules to juggle.
tyylee - We also need to teach rhyming before expecting the children to make analogies. I think I tend to rush into analogies and then wonder why the children don't use them independently. I need to rethink what I do before I get to that stage.
Mary/PA - Retrievers, schedules are always difficult to work around
Mary/PA - What can be done during RAK with children who don't show any signs of knowing about rhyming?
tyylee - In Roaming we could read stories to the children and have them tell them back to us as well as having them retell the simple stories they are reading.
tyylee - Mary, you teach Kindergarten, what do you do to teach Kind. children rhyming that we could use in roaming?
Mary/PA - The fine line between not teaching anything new - staying in the Known and crossing over to new items and concepts is difficult to see at times
Mary/PA - Yes, I teach Kindergarten. That's the thing, I Teach ... In K we do a lot of "In the ear and out the mouth" activities. But this is a form of teaching. If a child doesn't show signs of this skill, I'm afraid to do this during Rak
Retrievers - looking for some ideas for the beginning sessions of roaming.
tyylee - I agree that we are not suppose to teach during roaming, perhaps the best place for these things is early lessons but there is never enough time and it is so essential.
Retrievers - My TL says she always starts with a Where's spot type book, copying the childs photo from the cumulative folder and going from there. Printshop has some great graphics that I thought about using.
Mary/PA - Retrievers- letter sorts, making books for the student using things they say, ... write books with highly structured sentences (Patterens)
gmrapper - looking forward to starting RAK and getting kids started.. many of mine have trouble retaining early words. I try to do alot of letter sorting. word sort too?
Mary/PA - I take lots of pictures of the kids showing things they can do and we write captions for the pictures --- Sam can jump. Sam can smile. etc - I use a digital camera and print the pictures out with the computer
didi/aus - How many books do you do each day in RAK at easy level
Mary/PA - 7 - 10
Mary/PA - They say the kids should come out of Roaming with 40 to 50 books in their collection
Mary/PA - They should also spend at least 10 to 15 min. each session writing
Retrievers - so a spot book is not the best idea?
gmrapper - i've been told that kids should read their RAK books many many times, rather than having 40 new books
didi/aus - I could do few more then I've been doing about 6 a day with my level 3 girl
Mary/PA - gmrapper, these books are quick reads, they can read many old ones and new ones each session
Mary/PA - There should be many for them to pick from when they near the end of RAK
gmrapper - fast pace is sure important
didi/aus - My level 15 boy has had almost straight lessons as is he my emergency replacement for when one of my other 4 are absent
Mary/PA - didi, is this level 3 girl a second or third rounder?
tyylee - 40-5o books for each child coming out of roaming?? I don't have two hundred easy books in my collection. I try to introduce two or three new books each day and reread all the ones from previous lessons.
didi/aus - Yes this is my second round we only have a term left
Mary/PA - tyylee, these books are mostly teacher/student made, especially during first round
didi/aus - I have here a boy at L8 but with high absenteeism at present and one at 14 who has to go off soon
Mary/PA - They don't have to be fancy
Mary/PA - and can be short
didi/aus - The ones I'm testing at present for a vacancy are easy at L10 and I'm about to do RR on L11 &12 after lunch
Mary/PA - My biggest weakness is taking notes during RAK
tyylee - How long are the student made books? Perhaps I try to make them too long. We can only complete one book together each day
Mary/PA - I know that we should be writing everything down that we observe, but I usually get caught up in doing other things instead of writing
Mary/PA - I'm going to try harder to do better with this tis year
didi/aus - We made up a sheet with space for 2 lessons on a page for RAK which we bind in with our lesson plan sheets
Mary/PA - didi, that's not too bad! The regular classrooms must be doing a fairly good job, or is that really low in your school?
tyylee - I try to give myself five minutes after each testing session to reflect and make notes to myself about what went on. I too have trouble getting the notes down during the actual testing.
Mary/PA - I've heard that the very successful RRts write 2 to 3 pages of notes during each RAK session! I never come close to that!
didi - Yes not too bad we have 2 RR teachers on class and they have great guided reading set up we have a couple lower but they are 8yrs
didi - Gee I never write that much.
Nanny - Are you talking about first round students at level 8 and 11
Mary/PA - Sharlo..., we are talking about RAK
didi - No these are 2nd round we are 3/4 the way through our year
Nanny - Can someone give me some creative activities? I forget from year to year?
didi - I don't know how you read so many books and go round taking photos etc
Mary/PA - Is anyone here in RAK now?
Julie - Hi. I am in my second week of RAK.
Nanny - I am. we just started new year.
RT - What grade Nanny?
didi - My girl loved the rainbow letter and with lots of reversals it was great
Mary/PA - I usually use the first RAK session to take a bunch of photos - I then use them for the 10 sessions, I don't take pics every day
didi - My girl loved the rainbow letter and with lots of reversals it was great
didi - I'm lesson 8 with one girl
Mary/PA - At what level did your kids come in this year, Nanny?
didi - My L15 has had 5 RAK lessons but he is the twin of one I just finished
Mary/PA - We don't have kids until Wed., I'll start testing then - my first rounders are usually level A
Julie - My children came into roaming at Levels A and B. My TL said to try to have them in level 3 or 4 books by the end of roaming. They are just getting used to Level 2 now , and I only have four more days of roaming. I don't know how to push on when they're not comfortable with the lower levels. How far do you all get when you start with such low levels?
didi - How do you organise your lesson plan sheetes and RR sheets
didi - What do you mean by level A &B
Mary/PA - I use three ring notebooks with several slash pockets - one for record sheets, one for rr, one for lesson records, etc
Julie - I mean the levels A and B from observation survey. B is if they can read "Where's Spot?" and A if they are unable to. Really , level 1 when we start roaming.
Mary/PA - didi, those are the lowest levels here - kids who couldn't read level one books
didi - Right We just call it dictated text but don't give it anyother name
Mary/PA - Level A is when a child can't even point and read "No, no, no" in a book that we read to them. (Where's Spot?) Level B is if they can point and read the "No, no, no" but can't read the level one text
didi - Better go and see the boss and do these RR s. See you next time.
suemay - Mary, at the end of last year we began to hear that we shouldn't be introducing the alphabet book in roaming. Why ? I always found it useful for the kids who came in with letter knowledge.
Mary/PA - didi, what texts do you use when giving the OS?
Mary/PA - OK, see ya didi, thanks for coming
didi - Usually some of the pm books but no preselected ones.
didi - We check with the group we are testing to see if they know them
Mary/PA - suemay, I'm not sure about that ... if they know the letters, I would think that you could start it
didi - See you , di_s@writeme.com
Mary/PA - I wish that we could do it that way, didi
didi - What do you do
suemay - oour TL came back fr NYU mentioning this, but we didn't have time to discuss it.
Mary/PA - My screen went blank - didi, do you mean what do we do for the OS?
didi - Yes Mary for the RR
Mary/PA - We have to use a set of texts that are not all that interesting
Mary/PA - They are some old Scott Forseman texts
didi - I see must away thanks I love this meeting, We have Scott Foresman here but quite old and many are too American for here.
suemay - Do you try to develop the lesson format during the last week of roaming. I found that when I played games or used "fun" materials too much, the kids asked for those activities when lessons began
didi - SAme here Sue I don't have real fancy lessons
Mary/PA - Maybe the reasoning for not doing the Alpha Book during RAK is because Clay doesn't talk about it until after starting lessons
Mary/PA - In the GB
didi - See you
Mary/PA - suemay, I tend to make RAK look more like lessons than play
Mary/PA - When I first started teaching RR, I found that kids didn't move into lessons easily when we were too far from the lesson format during RAK
Mary/PA - During RAK we read and write, read and write, read and write
Mary/PA - for the most part
Mary/PA - Well I guess I should call it a night.
suemay - I use some of the KEEP It books in roaming as well as ones that we make. That number (40-50) books by the end of roaming seems like a lot. I usually try for 2 or 3 a day- some that we write and some level 1/2 that might be approriate. I seem to get more mileage out of writing at the beginning. Do you find that?
Julie - I am trying to do that with three of my children, but one is extremely hyperactive. My TL said to keep him moving and doing things. I'm afraid we're going to have a tough time next week. Bye Mary.
Mary/PA - Thanks for coming and hope that you can make it next time
suemay - Bye and thanks
