guided reading

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Home : 2001 : November : 17

guided reading
By Carolyn

I teach whole group guided reading, and my students consistently score well on state and standardized tests for ELA. Use of whole group or small group instruction depends upon your need. I don't think there's anything wrong
with teachers wanting to use either method, but then it depends upon your students' needs. As I already said, my students read at grade level, and we also have a new program in use this year to help students with individual needs, so I don't use grouping. (I forgot to mention this above.)
The program has basically outmoded the old reading groups instruction method for us, although

we can still do individualized instruction if we have the need to. Our students go to the computer lab three times a week for a half hour to practice reading skills on a program created by a company called NCS. Throughout their time on the computer, the students will work on their individual weaknesses and needs. The weaknesses and needs are set by the computer, itself, by strands, and according to a student's past performance on that particular skill. One student may have difficulty with reference skills. For example, he may have trouble placing a word within a given group of guide words for the dictionary. The computer gives him training and instruction on that. As children excel at skills, they are moved on to higher levels. I really like this program, because EACH child in my room has particular needs which are met by the program. I have two fifth grade students who have been moved from Reader's Workshop to Reading Adventures, because they are better readers. We obtain printouts at the end of week to see how much growth is achieved. I like looking at these printouts to see, quantitatively, how my students have grown. We can actually see, skill by skill, how each student is doing, his success rate or failure in it, and we receive a total grade level equivalent score which we can compare to past scores. I would say that it's hard to beat this method of individualized reinforcement.

I would be interested in hearing from others how they have done with programs such as NCS. We love it at our school. It helps a lot with individualization.