Guided ReadingGood First Teaching

What is Guided Reading?

“Guided reading is a teaching approach designed to help individual students learn how to process a variety of increasingly challenging texts with understanding and fluency.” Fountas and Pinnell

What is Guided Reading?

It’s also a mechanism for understanding and guiding students’ metacognitive processes.

Rationale for including Guided Reading in the day

1- It allows you to meet the varying instructional needs of all students in the most time efficient way possible

2- It allows you to observe students as they process new texts and to take running records3- It gives readers time to develop new self correction and comprehension strategies

4- It provides a safe, small group for students

Flow of a Guided Reading session

** An extension activity can be assigned at the end**

2 mins Reread a past guided reading book while making sure everyone is settled at literacy stations.

5-8 mins Teacher intro of book, book walk, review tricky words, and tell students the focus of guided reading for today. Students can use highlighter or evidence flags to mark focus areas in the text.

10 mins Students read to themselves. Have 1-2 students “whisper read”. Take a running record. Students reread if they are done early.

5 mins Discuss the text using the day’s focus as the lens, maybe go over a fluency or grammar point you noticed in the text.

Good Guided Reading requires planning

- Think about the “before reading, during reading, and after reading” parts of the lesson.

- Consider the focus of the lesson (aligned to the reading curriculum)

- Find books aligned with the lowest level student of each group

- Will you do running records during guided reading or at a different time?

- Consider your teacher introduction of the book

Lesson Plans

Guided Reading Lesson Plans

Dynamic and flexible grouping

- Students are grouped according to instructional level and should not be stuck in groups for a set period of time.

- “Rather than setting a rigid criterion for moving a student "up" a level, use informed teacher decision making. If students are reading well at an instructional level and they demonstrate comprehension through conversation, the running records should be getting at the top of instructional level or even into independent level. Look at your most recent records and also use your observational notes as a basis for moving to the next level.” Fountas and Pinnell

How often do I meet with groups?

Sample Schedules

The Guided Reading binder

The binder includes everything we spoke about today:

1- Lesson plan copy2- Blank and sample grouping schedules3- Materials for running records4- 26 dividers (one per student to keep running records and other data)5- Individual independent reading conference forms

Running Records

What are they and rationale for including

- Integral part of balanced literacy- Provide a snapshot of what children know and understand about

the reading process- Guide teaching and help match text to reader- Help to create flexible groups by determining instructional and

independent reading levels- Provides a wealth of knowledge about readers’ growth over time

Logistics of Running Records- Each student should have a running record taken every

4-6 weeks depending on reading level and ability

- Records can be taken during guided reading, independent

reading conferences, or whenever you have a free moment.

Think of this as 1-2 per day and make it a routine.

- Summary sheets are included in the binder to track

students and their progress and can be kept in students’

personal tabs

Recording and analyzing errors

M, S, V (Meaning, Structure, Visual) errors

- Help us to further understand how a child is processing a text- On the Running Record, write which cue(s) the child uses

M Meaning Did the child make a meaningful substitution when making the error showing that they understand the text? (woods for forest)

S Structure Did the child rely on their use of English grammar to make the text sound right? (sub a noun for a noun or adjective for adjective)

V Visual Did the child use the visual features of words and letters and connect this knowledge to the way words and letters sound when spoken? (treats for threats or poor for pool)

Sample running record

So much data!

We will analyze this data throughout the year to better inform our teaching!

Independent Reading

Conferences

Daily Reading

- Each day students are given 20 minutes to read a chosen book at their independent level

- Independent level= 95% - 100% accuracy- Reading conferences occur at this time

Reading Conferences

- A quick check in with students where you listen to them read and have a quick book talk. Maybe a brief teaching point occurs.

- No more than 5 minutes- You can choose to take a running record as well- At the end of reading time, students log their minutes

and perhaps respond to a journal prompt- Resources are included in your guided reading binder

Reading Conferences Binder Resources

Keep track of your students’ conferences!

Reading Conferences Binder Resources

I would have

one page per

student. Keep

this in each

student’s

designated tab

so you can

easily look

back to see

previous

compliments

and teaching

points.