Guided Reading Lessons

Guided reading lessons are one of the most effective teaching reading strategies.

All areas of reading comprehension and teaching reading fluency can be done in these small groups.

What is guided reading? It is just one part of a balanced literacy program.

A good guided reading resource will not tell you that all you should do is guided reading. There also has to be grade level exposure and interactive read alouds.

Guided reading is an integral part of how children should be learning to read.

It is not about being able to read a certain number of words per minute.

This requires you to be a reflective teacher. Look at the results of what you do - and do it better.

In guided reading we are teaching for strategic actions. We are bringing the teaching to the student, not the curriculum.

We remember that no two children will read a text the same way.

The text is an opportunity to build reading "powers."

Why Worry About
Teaching Guided Reading?

Why should we care so much about guided reading?

Statistics show that states can predict how many prison beds they will need in the future by the number of children who fail second grade.

More adult males in prison cannot read than those who can. Illiteracy is a poverty and crime predictor.

So What Is Guided Reading?

Guided reading lessons are when we pull small, temporary homogenous groups of children to a central location and work with them on strategic reading actions.

These lessons are short enough that students can finish a whole book. It is focused on one strategy that all of the students at the table need to know. This means there can be students at different levels working together on the same strategy.

It is not a novel study. It is not a worksheet. It is not always children who are reading at the same "level."

A level is not the student as a whole. Too much time is wasted thinking guided reading is about putting students into leveled groups and that's it. That is only one way to group kids, but there are specific strategies for guided reading activities at each level.

Guided reading lesson plans help us to meet students where they are at skills-wise. We make texts and strategies accessible and monitor for growth. When measurable growth is attained, we move on.

It is critical that children are matched to their right text level for their independent reading time. If the level is too hard, it really does make the child a worse reader.

One must have resource is The Leveled Book List, shown at the left. This will help you to level a portion of your classroom library (because your whole library should not be leveled) to guide your students in reading lots of books that are just right for them.

The question that always comes up, "What are my other students supposed to do while I am with a group?" Those students should be immersed in literacy activities. See a meaningful literacy block for more information.

Benchmark Assessments and Guided Reading Lessons

If the point of teaching reading is to help children grow as strategic readers, then why do some teachers only do a pre- and post-test format to make their groups?

This type of assessment in education is the same thing as tracking. In guided reading lessons, there is no place for tracking. We use interval assessments to continually monitor growth.

Benchmark assessments are only good for a few weeks. During that time there should be progress monitoring happening in the form of interval assessments. This keeps the groups fluid and allows for differentiated growth amongst the students.

There are many activities for guided reading lessons. The best books I have found are by Irene Fountas and Gay Sue Pinnel as well as Jan Richardson. Anyone who is using guided reading (and you all should) needs these books as they provide guidance from the experts.