Guided Reading by Any Other Name…

From the desk of Carol C….

First let me start with a story that may tell you where I’m coming from on the subject of guided reading.  Quite a few years ago I observed a K/1 classroom where the children were learning how to subtract.  One child raised her hand to give the answer and said, “Four dash three is one.”  The teacher pointed to the subtraction sign and reminded her that she should say either minus or subtract. The teacher asked the child to try once more, and again the child said, “Four dash three is one.”  The teacher ONCE AGAIN reminded the child that the sign was called either minus or subtract.  At that the little girl turned to me and whispered, “You can call it what you want…it’s still a dash.”

Recently, I was talking to a former teacher who told me that she didn’t believe in guided reading and had never used it.  When I asked if she had grouped her students at all, she told me that she gathered a group of kids who needed more help, needed some practice, or needed to advance and taught them what they needed.  She met with the groups several times a week to work on skills, strategies, or comprehension.  I told her that it sounded pretty much like guided reading.  The teacher ended with (honestly), “Call it what you want.  It’s still remediation and advancement to me.”

Those stories still make me laugh, but they do bring up an important point about naming what we do. We call small groups by lots of different names, but the idea is the same:  to meet kids where they are and give them the tools to go further.  Then why guided reading?  Guided reading is a more focused, purposeful grouping that has elements which are essential to getting the most out of each lesson.  How do I know?  I have been down the road of both small groups and guided reading.  Trust me.  I didn’t come to guided reading with a particularly open mind.  However after much reading on the subject, observing other teachers, and just trying it out, I am now a proponent of guided reading.  Try out guided reading for yourself or fine tune what you are doing.  In simple terms here are the steps to guided reading:

• In some way shape or form assess each child to find out her reading level including word accuracy and comprehension.
• When you have assessed each child in your class, group them according to their needs.  It may be that you begin grouping them by leveled text or high, middle, low.  After you have implemented guided reading this way you will soon see that the groups are going to be fluid.  In other words you may need to pull a guided reading group to work on predicting.  This could be kids from different reading levels.
• Once you have decided on your groups, decide what you want/need to teach each group.  This will become the purpose for your lesson and should be aligned with your standards/curriculum.
• Find text that matches your readers in the form of articles off the Internet, old basals, and any other reliable source that lends itself to teaching to your purpose.
• Decide how much of the text your group will read in one session with you.  This will be dependent on the amount of time you have and how much text the kids need to read to be able to discuss what they are learning.  Remember-it is not necessary to read the entire text- it’s just a tool!
• Pull up one guided reading group.  Tell them the purpose of the lesson today and decide what information will quickly get them into the text as a successful reader.  It could be a few vocabulary words or a quick background lesson. Use what you think will help your group and quickly release them.
• Assign the group to read a certain amount of text.  This may be the whole text or part of it.  Each child must read on her own and not with a buddy so they can practice as individuals.
• Sit beside as many children in the group as possible and listen to them read.  Take notes on what the child can do and what she struggles with.  Try to prompt a child to help her figure out an “answer’ rather than just telling her.  As children finish the assignment have them reread it or have a basket of books on the table for them to look through.  You decide.
• Stop the group either after all have finished reading.  Discuss the text in a way that centers on your purpose.  If you are working on cause and effect, see if you can lead the conversation in that direction.  At first you may have to ask lots of leading questions until your kids get used to a discussion style instead of a question/answer one.
•  End with a question such as “What did you learn today?” or “How does cause and effect help you to better understand what you read?”  Now breathe a sigh of relief as you have finished teaching your first guided reading group.

A few more thoughts on guided reading:  use the notes you took while listening to your students to plan the instruction that they need next.  There are forms on the Internet and in books that you can use to organize your notes, assessments, and all of the other paperwork that goes along with teaching.  The ideal is to teach each guided reading group each day.   Of course the rule of thumb is to meet with struggling readers more often than the other groups.  Your lessons don’t need to be more than 20-25 minutes max.

What next?  Read some of the literature or talk with someone who has experience with guided reading.  There are a multitude of books on the subject.  Ask around for good titles or ask to borrow a resource.  Websites that may be helpful:

http://www.wresa.org/ERR/Module%204.pdf   This is a slide show for the basics about guided reading.

http://fpblog.heinemann.com/post/2010/08/02/what-is-guided-reading-teaching.aspx   This is a Fountas and Pinnell blog.

http://thinkingofteaching.blogspot.com/2012/06/little-help-from-experts.html  This is a good site with links to other sites about guiding reading.  You can find information about primary through upper grades.

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/search/teacher?VT=2&channelOnly=true&Nty=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&_N=fff&Ntk=SCHL30_SI&query=beth+newingham&N=0&No=0&Ntt=beth+newingham  This is a great site for lots of everything that Beth Newingham has ever thought of implementing.

Call it what you want, but guided reading is a way to organize your time to teach small groups in a way that will grow each reader!