Guided ReadingCreated by:

Stephanie Woolard and Amanda Pierce

East End Elementary2011

Content Objectives

Participants will be able to define and describe the importance of incorporating Guided Reading into a balanced literacy classroom.

Language Objectives

Today I will learn… to identify the components that

are essential in a Guided Reading lesson

to thoughtfully plan for a Guided Reading lesson

What is “Guided Reading”?

In Reading Essentials, Regie Routman describes Guided Reading as:

“meeting with a small group of students, and guiding and supporting them through a manageable text. Students are grouped with others at a similar reading level and supported to use effective reading strategies. Often, there are ‘before, during, and after’ activities and discussion in which students talk about, think about, and read through the text.”

Gradual Release of Responsibility

Change Over Time

“Guided Reading changes as readersprogress…At first, students depend heavilyon the teacher but gradually, they assumemore responsibility for their own reading asthey learn strategies they can use toproblem solve on a variety of text.”

Payne & Schulman (2000)

Flexible Grouping

Students should be reading AND comprehending on about the same reading level (no more than one level apart)

Groups should contain no more than 6 students

Groups will change frequently as students progress

PLANNING Know your students’ strengths and

needs (abilities to decode, comprehend, read with fluency, write etc.)

Instructional Reading Level allows students to be successful while still providing appropriate challenge (90-94%)

Be aware of your students’ interests to increase engagement

Materials Texts can include leveled readers

(little books), basals, magazines/newspapers, journal articles, reading passages on a handout, etc

On the appropriate level Picture support Print features and layout

Components of a Guided Reading Lesson

Running Records and TRC progress monitoring …in order to monitor change over time

Sight Words … in order to build automaticity

Book Introductions … in order to build background knowledge, concepts and vocabulary

Teaching and Prompting for Strategies… in order to release responsibility and develop independence

Components of a Guided Reading Lesson (cont.)

Book Discussion … in order to build comprehension and language development

Letter and Word Work … in order to develop phonic awareness and phonics

Re-reading yesterday’s Book … in order to develop fluency and critical thinking

Writing … in order to build reciprocity with oral and written language

Why One Book for Two Days?

Enables teachers to use time more efficiently

Helps students develop higher order thinking skills

Allows for differentiated word work that will strengthen students’ phonemic awareness and decoding

Builds reciprocity between reading and writing

Book IntroductionAfter selecting an appropriate text, you

must ‘debug’ the book to make it accessible to the reader (pg 91, Clay, 2005) .

Preview and discuss illustrations Give the gist and “hook” the reader Introduce new vocabulary/concepts Discuss unfamiliar language structures Locate unfamiliar and more difficult words in the text Make predictions Make connections

Participant activity

Preview the book Lola at the Library

Consider the following about your students:• Reading level H-I (14-16)• Familiar with non-fiction text

features• Uses punctuation for meaning and

fluency• Has difficulty with multisyllabic

words

Is this an appropriate text for this group? Why or why not? (turn and talk)

Participant activity (cont.)

Using Lola at the Library, independently plan an appropriate book introduction

Share book introductions in small groups

Teacher Support During the Reading

As each child reads the text quietly to himself, the teacher dips in to listen, look for and support strategic processing (strategies).

“Strategies are mental operations, the in-the-head processes that readers use to read text.” Payne & Schulman (2000)

Extending Understanding:

Discussing the Text Discussing the text after reading is an

important time to provoke thought—to take readers to a new depth of understanding about what they read.

The post-reading discussion is not meant to be a question-answer session.

A Guided Reading lesson is also an opportunity to introduce your students to story elements and literacy devices: plot, character, setting, etc.

Teaching for Strategies

Remember that “strategies are mental operations, the in-the-head processes that readers use to read text.” Payne & Schulman (2000)

Discuss an appropriate strategy to teach for in Lola at the Library

Prompting for strategies

Verbalizing the process the student used while reading fosters metacognition and provides feedback and encouragement: “I like the way you reread that sentence and thought about what would make sense.”

Providing specific prompts encourages the reader to think and behave a certain way: “That sounds right, but does it look right? Go back and reread to see if it looks right.”

Guided Writing Interactive Writing (Levels PreA-A) Teacher gives the sentence and shares the pen

with students to model and guide

Dictated or Open Ended (Levels A-E) Teacher tells the sentence(s) and the students

write with some guidance

Guided Writing (Levels F+) Usually to a prompt and is sometimes open-

ended

Time to Reflect After today’s session, I learned…

After today’s session, I still wonder…

References Clay, M. (2005). Literacy lessons: Designed for

individuals. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fountas, I. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001). Guiding

readers and writers grades 3-6: Teaching comprehension, genre and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Payne, C.D & Schulman, M.B. (2000). Guided reading: Making it work. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

Routman, R. (2003). Reading essentials: The specifics you need to teach reading well. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.