Guided Reading
Guided reading is where the teacher leads a small group lesson. The lessons usually come from students needs after learning whole group lessons. Students are grouped dynamically or flexible, which means they can be moved from one group to another if needed. The goal of guided reading is to create independent readers who use reading strategies successfully (Fountas and Pinnell). The teacher models strategies to use while reading the text to promote higher level thinking and then uses a gradual release technique to give students the opportunity to use the strategy on their own while reading. When in these small groups students should each have their own leveled text. This does not mean that each student must have the same exact book. As long as the books are the same genre and the strategy can be taught from that book it is ok. Allowing them to have the choice of leveled text will also help to create independent readers. This gives the students the opportunity to find a just right text for themselves that they can use to try out the new strategies. We want students to have texts that aren't too easy but aren't too hard. The texts should be a ladder of progress, just challenging enough so that they will help the children grow as readers (Fountas and Pinnell). Why don't we see teachers giving students in the same group different texts?
While the teacher is meeting with these small groups the other students should be actively engaged in centers provided around the room. You could follow the Daily 5 model with centers such as:
read to self, listening to reading, read to someone, word work or work on writing. You can even use the Daily 5 but also incorporate centers on other subject areas.
What are the Parts of a Guided Reading Lesson?
(From Guided Reading The Romance and the Reality by Fountas and Pinnell)
- Introduction to the text: to scaffold the reading
- A reading of the text with some brief teacher interaction: students read the text softly or silently
- Discussion of the text (for comprehension)
- Teaching points on strategies
- Word Work
What to have at your Guided Reading Area:
- Ipads
- Graphic Organizers
- Clock/ Timer
- List of Teacher Prompts (on clipboard)
- Organizer at table or behind the table
- Binder with forms/ lesson plans
- Whiteboards or contact paper
- magnetic letters
- highlighters, markers
- postits
- motivational tools for students
I have found tons of blogs and pins on pinterest about guided reading organization! Here are some of my favorite organization strategies I have found:
Books on Guided Reading:
Meghan you made a great point about the fact that teachers should give students the choice of different texts to use during guided reading. In all of my experience in my placements, I have only seen students using the same texts in their guided reading groups. There were a few different groups of students, and each group read the same text. It is a new idea to me that students can all have different texts as long as they are the same genre and can be used by the teacher to teach the same concepts. I like the idea of different texts for each student because it helps to give them responsibility for their learning. Students get to choose a text that they are interested in, and because of this, I think that they will be able to attend to the teacher better and learn more.
ReplyDeleteI really like the organizational resources that you have posted. I know that as teachers, we will have lots of materials that we will need to keep organized or it may become overwhelming. I think it is very important to have all of the resources needed for guided reading planned ahead of time and kept close to the guided reading center so that the teacher can have all of the resources needed for the lesson.