Next Step Forward in Guided Reading: Essentials

After reflecting on my first year back in 2nd grade, I realized that my guided reading instruction needs improvement. This past school year I focused on guided math and I'm feeling pretty confident about that so now is the perfect time to take a look at reading. 
I'll be sharing my takeaways from the following chapters from Jan Richardson's Next Step Forward in Guided Reading: Chapter 1: Guided Reading Essentials Chapter 4: Early Readers Levels D-I (DRA Levels 6-16) Chapter 5: Transitional Readers Level J-P (DRA Levels 18-38) Chapter 7: Moving Forward with Comprehension Instruction 
This post will focus on Chapter 1: Guided Reading Essentials.   **Shared Reading is the whole class mini lesson, JR suggests limiting this time to 10-15 minutes. Traditionally our shared reading block is usually 30 minutes long. Until I can see my master schedule, I'm not sure how I will structure this time yet.   
**She has a timeline for teaching routines and procedures for reading workshop that spans 6 weeks.  Week 1- students work in small groups for 10 minutes a day on easy independent "tub activities." These can include books, puzzles, journals, Legos, coloring books. These tubs will eventually be replaced by literacy activities as you teach students to be independent learners.   Week 2- introduce a literacy activity to each of the groups, while other groups are in tubs  Week 3- introduce a 2nd literacy activity to each of the groups, lengthen time to 15 minutes Week 4- introduce a 3rd literacy activity to each group, lengthen time to 20 minutes Week 5- introduce a 4th literacy activity to each group, students should be able to work 30-45 minutes without direct supervision Week 6- all students should be working independently with purposeful literacy experiences, tubs should no longer be required At my former school, teachers were required to be in guided reading groups by the second week of school and my biggest complaint has been that students could not work independently and I spent more time correcting behavior than instructing. While I'm not sure I'll take 6 entire weeks, I will be taking several weeks to build stamina. I usually have a list of Daily Literacy Tasks on the board for students to complete while I met with guided reading groups, on Fridays the students completed READ (Read to Self, Engage, At Seat, Daily Writing) Rotations while I pulled reading skill groups. Engage consisted of reading puzzles and games, At Seat consisted of literacy menus. 
**Book Boxes/Bags (as a literacy activity), JR recommends students have a personal box or bag that contains a variety of books for independent reading. She says to include books students have read during guided reading and other easy books they can read without support. This allows them to develop fluency and practice strategies on easy, familiar texts. This past year we sent the previous weeks' guided reading book home with the students, with the expectation that they were reading it at home... they weren't and I stopped sending home books the 4th quarter. I like this idea much better, that way I know students are rereading the books. 
**Other Literacy Activity Suggestions: buddy reading, writing, readers theater, poems and songs, word study and spelling, word wall, listening to recorded stories, oral retelling, computer, research. I'll probably do something similar to what I did last year. Using the READS acronym, Read to Self, Engage, At Seat, Daily Writing, Skill Practice and embed some of these options into those stations. 
What literacy activities do your students complete while you're working with guided reading groups?