 Okay boys and girls we're going to be reading a story today and with that story we'll be using what we read to make predictions about what will happen next in the text. In the story we're going to be reading is called catch that ball. It's gonna be a story about a girl who's really proud of what she does but then something might happen at the end of the story. I'm gonna leave that a little bit of a surprise for you. Okay and today my students were meeting in a small guided reading group to focus on making predictions for the reading focus but we were using the skill of traffic signals in order for them to self-assess where they were with their readings. We're going to be using our traffic signals. We've been using these now for a while and let's review real quick before we get started. If we have green up what's that what are you telling me about yourself? Riley? You're good. You're working hard. You have no problems right now. You understand everything you're reading. What if I look over and I see you have the yellow up? What's that telling me about? You have a question? You have a question and what else though? You have a question? Need a little help? The question Emmy? But you're good. Okay you're still good you just have a question so you're still working but you have a little question for me. Now what if I look over and I see this red traffic signal up Alex? I need help. I need help okay that's telling me you can't go any further you need help okay and I put a little poster back here for us so we can always remember what those mean. So we'll start everyone out on green. Using the traffic signals is a great way for them to show me where they are with their learning. They're able to self-assess and be able to determine if they're on the right track or if they need some help and it's also able for me to manage the group a lot easier especially in a small group setting. That way it's a visual cue for me whereas a lot of times if the students are sitting there with their hands up they stop working all together and the mine on the yellow traffic signal is where you know they can continue to work and they don't have to stop completely. Excellent. Emmy you're up one second. Yes you can go ahead good question go ahead and make a prediction answer that question make a prediction and then you can go on with your reading. Excellent question. Hannah? Go ahead and flip the page and then continue on a couple questions for you and then your writing response. Great. In order to prepare them to use traffic signals at first I did a lot of modeling with different passages of reading and acted like they I was a student myself and came to different vocabulary words that they might not be familiar with and when I modeled that I didn't know the word I would put the yellow card up and continue reading because I didn't want to stop just because of one word and you have a question you still have your yellow up. Did you have a question? Oh excellent. Now were you stopped right there? Did that question stop you? Okay that would have been a good time to put the red up for me because that would show that you were stopped you couldn't work anymore. Alright in the past they would be stopping so that means their learning is stopping they're not focused anymore their attention might go off to something else so this is just a way for them to constantly be working until they do put that red one up and then I also modeled when I got to a point where I just didn't comprehend what was in the text I used the red traffic signal for them to show that there is a time where you do need to stop and you know ask for assistance. Alright excellent. Good job that sounded great. Oh Brady you have red up where are you stopped at? Do you need help? On number three right there which part of number three do you need help with? This is great as a visual in the classroom for whole group because sometimes it's hard to identify a student that's not working they might be sitting there and they look like they're actively engaged but they're not so by them putting that signal up it's a great way for me to get to a student quickly. I've also used it in you know different subjects not just reading I've used it in math as well small group and whole group I've even taken them to the computer lab on times to where they can put them on their computers and if they have a problem or an issue they can put the different colors up in the computer lab. This is not something to just throw out to the kids and say you know go ahead and use this they need to see it in action and that's why I you know started off with modeling at first and if you just give it to them a lot of times they'll overuse them. For new teachers that would be trying this I would start in small group maybe model it whole group but when you start using them using them in small group is a lot easier just for the management for you to manage them sometimes in whole group it becomes very tedious to get around the classroom to all the different students so I would start modeling whole group but then when you're actually letting the students use it go into small group first.