Guided Reading

The article on guided reading I chose is titled “An Important Aspect of Guided Reading: Books Galore!” by J Lois Lanning and Rene LaMere and published in Classroom Connections.  The article opens with a brief description of what guided reading is.  The authors describe it as one of the principle teaching techniques in primary grades as part of a balanced literacy program.  They point out that guided reading is very beneficial to students needing intensive reading intervention, but it is also beneficial to those students that don’t.  The main point of guided reading is to give students the opportunity to practice and deepen the reading strategies they are learning.  The authors describe a guided reading program as formatted with four lesson elements: an introduction appropriate to the student’s needs and the characteristics of the book, supported reading with teacher guidance, focused teaching of specific skills or strategies, and ending with some type of follow-up activity.  All of this requires a knowledgeable teacher who understands the reading process, knows the strengths and weaknesses of her students, and is familiar with numerous books.  The next section of the article discusses the reasons why guided reading should be used in the classroom.  Guided reading groups are made up of four to six children who can read the text used in the lesson with 90-95% accuracy; membership is also flexible and dynamic.  The main purpose of the groups is to help students develop the strategies of good, independent readers, which requires that the students acquire “fix-up” strategies that help them process and comprehend text.  These small groups allow the teacher to adjust or differentiate instruction specific to each child’s needs and abilities.  The small groups also allows opportunity for student discussion about the text helping them make connections between the text and their existing experience and knowledge of what is in the text.  The participants in the group mediate the processes the reader uses to understand the meaning of the text though problem-solving strategies.  The teacher will also model and explain, and then move to prompting the student’s use of specific skills and strategies.  During these lessons the teacher also has an opportunity to observe and assess a student’s progress by monitoring language development, conduction a running record or inventory, and listening to group dialogue understand their thinking.  The author then points out that for all of this to be realized teachers must carefully plan their lessons and the must have a large supply of books along with a system for managing them.  The article offers suggestions for ways to obtain lots of books like through district budgets, grant funds, pay projects, recycling anthologies, buying from bargain companies, and by putting together collections from all the books gathered throughout years.  The main thing to remember is that gathering books is a gradual and costly process that occurs over time.  The article then offers suggestions on how to level all the books you have collected.  The books should be leveled based on readability, interest, and genre.  Teachers can level books themselves by using characteristics like the layout of the book, the language structure, and the complexity; or they can get help from reading teachers, language arts consultants, or other colleagues who have experience.  The article points out that all publishing companies, reading authorities, programs, and curriculum frameworks use different terminology the classify their book levels, but Fountas and Pinnell and Yukish and Lanning offer charts that may help sort out these different leveling systems.  Another important aspect of building a guided reading library is to offer a large variety of texts including fairy tales, plays, fiction, how-to-books, poems, and non-fiction; this will help build student interest and motivation for reading.  Once teachers have a collection of books the need to have them sorted and organized in an efficient manner in order to keep track of them and provide ease of use.  The authors conclude by stating that the books are not the only requirement for a successful guided reading program, a thorough and well trained teacher is also needed.  They also point out that there are numerous resources to consult for assistance with guided reading instruction.  Most importantly, guided reading programs require time, money, training, books, and dedication, but the results are definitely worth the effort. 

This article provided me with a lot of great information on guided reading, especially with how to set up a system with lots of books.  I have observed several guided reading groups so I understand a little about how they work and what takes place.  But it’s also good to have information on all the books you will need, how to get them and how to organize them, especially if you will be working in a school that does not have a great guided reading program set-up or design.  I really look forward to all the other aspects of guided reading that others in the class will find, especially as it relates to anything I don’t really know or understand, or if like this article it offers great suggestions on how to make guided reading work in your own classroom.          

Article can be found here:  http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED450358.pdf