guided reading

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2003 : October : 26

guided reading
By Joanne

At our school, we use the PM Benchmarks. We do a running record on each child, find out which level they are at, then I group them. I take more running records as the year progresses i.e each reporting period or when I
feel a child has improved i.e. is finding our guided reading session too easy. This year I have 7 groups.
In my sessions, rather than having them read aloud, once we have done a book talk and picture walk, I have them whisper read. I get around to each person to hear them read (usually 3 in a group). They often have a highlighter with them to highlight words they don't know (if they

are using a Reading A-Z book of their own.) We talk about comprehension, but also about how they figured out the tough words: sound it out, look at the pictures, skipped the word then re-read, etc. I then do a mini lesson that is the same focus as all of my other groups. The lesson might be: cloze activity, answering questions in full sentences, responding with own ideas, rhyming words, vocab. study. This way the children are all doing the same skill, but at their instructional level of reading. After I work with this group on this mini lesson, the group goes to the next centre which is a followup using the mini lesson and the story at their level. My guided reading is part of my literacy centre activities. The other centres are: journal writing, computer, reading logs, followup to story, spelling, writing on a specific topic ( story writing or picture prompts) I'm still working on expectations during these centres so that I am not interrupted during a guided reading lesson and to keep everyone on task. I do have the luxury of a student teacher who roams and answers questions at this time, but she won't be there for the entire year!. At any rate the kids seem to really enjoy it. I'm not totally convinced that they are at an optimal point of learning yet... though I'm giving it time to work out the wrinkles. I hope this is clear enough and that it helps!