GR & W questions

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Home : 2002 : January : 10

GR & W questions
By Debbie

Hi Anne,
I've read the book a few times-dug into chapters I've needed help with and skimmed others. I'm writing without the book, so forgive me if I'm interpreting things differently. And do let me know. I think something
that might be confusing is the whole leveling concept-purpose and as we've already discussed somewhat, how to level. When an author writes a 'trade book' it's meant to convey a message, which is not bound by a level, vocabulary or any criteria other than the author's imagination. Teachers who want to sensitively choose texts for their readers would use the leveling criteria to find

those 'just right' books. But the books themselves weren't created at a particular level...
Basal readers were created with different leveling (readability) criteria based on their beliefs on how children learn to read and what 'skills' everyone should progress through in order to have the 'competencies' of a GL reader. Open Court is phonemic based, the old Dick and Jane were controlled vocabulary readers, etc. Many publishers do literature anthologies, taking 'leveled books' (they use children's trade books but the leveling system is still based upon syllables, not the Reading Recovery or F & P's criteria) and put them together in a book. There are also several educational publishers who commission books at specific levels (based upon RR & F/P) for the purpose of shared/guided reading. One of the first publishers I encountered doing this was RCOwens with their leveled color wheel on the back. Wright, Rigby, and Dominie are others.
Guided Reading (approach, for lack of a term I don't have to look up right now) can have many purposes, literature conversations can be done in small guided groups. But guided reading means 'flying solo with support'(a loose interpretation). You've modeled a strategy you'd like the kids use and you're wanting to see them use that strategy with your help. That's why it's important to pick a 'just right' book. Guided Reading is 'in the head', though you may have seen a teacher asking a child to 'pick up his voice' so you can hear how he's using the new strategy, but it's not a round robin affair by any means. Hope this clears things up a little, Anne. I think as we read over those chapters and get some dialogue from our other reading colleatues, we'll all have a better sense of the approaches and purposes. And by the way, everyone is invited to join us to read GR & W together!!! ;-D