Since we returned from our glorious winter break on January 9th, I have been reviewing our I-charts with my students, having them model how it should look, and building their stamina! We are having a tough time getting our stamina past seven minutes.
My students are itching to get all the choices back (Word Work, Listen to Reading, and Computers) and I am itching to get conferencing going. Each time I go back to rebuild expectations and stamina with my students, I am so frustrated that they can't build their stamina back as quickly as I want them to!
The biggest realization I've had from my moments watching my students and the timer is how important it is to rebuild their stamina when returning from breaks. If I don't take the time to truly rebuild their stamina, but rather "enforce" them to the stamina I want then my students are not truly independent. My desire to rush through the stamina building process makes me think, "whose stamina are we building here?" Is it really my students who need to build their stamina, or is it me?
Starting tomorrow I am going to work to try and get a couple of conferences in as my students are working. We'll see how it goes!
