Donna Lowe Blog Post #1 The Habit of Kidwatching

As I read the article, The Habit of Kidwatching, by Timothy O'Keefe, I found myself relating to so many of the record keeping ideas and strategies that were discussed.

Over the years my record keeping has been much of what O'Keefe described as "often disjointed anecdotal notes,..."  I found myself saving all of my student's work, writing down notes about this and that, and not really using any of the information strategically to benefit my teaching or the student's learning.

Last year was the first time that I found a system that worked for me.  I created a daily plan that allowed me time to coach, or conference with every student every week.  It was the most wonderful literacy experience that I have created in my classroom to this day, I believe.

I attribute much of the motivation to create this system to The Daily Five as well to the opportunity that I had to visit another school and observe conferencing with first graders.  I was able to listen to each child read a few minutes from a book of their choice, which also needed to be on their reading level.  This helped me to determine if the students, indeed, were reading on the correct level.  I kept notes of the books that they would read to me, and I noticed that some wanted to bring the same book every week!  So, we talked about that.  I kept notes of what reading strategies the students used when they came to words that they didn't know.  I took notes on how the students tracked their words, and how fluent they read.  Over time I could look back and the information was so valuable to the mini-lessons that I taught, to the encouragement of other readers, etc.  Everytime I coached a student I gave them a bookmark with information about what they did great, and an area to improve.  They kept this with them as future reference.  Oh, how they loved those bookmarks.  I would see them collecting them like dollar bills in their desks.  During our share time after conferencing, I would point out a student who had used a strategy that we had discussed.   Overall, self-selected reading and conferencing time became my most valuable part of my school day. 

I agree that "kidwatching is not the for the faint of heart.  It required commitment, risk taking, and valuing the good in each child.  However, kidwatching is its own reward."