What is guided reading? Guided Reading involves working with small groups of students at similar levels of development, using texts that are carefully matched to their needs, and providing instructional support to build reading strategies and increase independence. Challenging, yes, but rewarding in terms of the results accrued in increased student reading ability.
Basically, the concept of guided reading means that teachers guide students through materials that are used for instruction. A critical foundation in guided reading is that students read materials at their instructional levels. During a typical lesson, students discuss both the content and the strategies they used to make sense of what is being read. Specific attention is devoted to levels of comprehension, questioning, before-reading strategies, during-reading strategies, and after-reading strategies.
|
Links to resources
|
- Guided Reading as one of the blocks in the Four Blocks Literacy Model is explained by Dorothy Hall, one of the developers of the model for grades 1-3.
- Guided Reading In The Primary Classroom. Second grade teacher and consultant Mary Kreul gives an overview of the Guided Reading technique and steps for a guided reading lesson.
- Jeanne Morris Guided Reading is a collection of information prepared as inservice materials by Jeanne Morris, second grade teacher and staff development trainer.
- Learning Media Guided Reading begins with a general overview, then user can select primary or intermediate for a more detailed description.
- Montgomery County Schools Guided Reading, from the MCPS Department of Academic Programs Early Literacy Guide, 1999 (Maryland). Q&A format gives detailed explanation of Guided Reading K-3.
- Ms. Ross Guided Reading is a first grade teacher's explanation of her use of guided reading, and associated literacy centers, in the Pocono Mountain School District, Cresco, Pennsylvania.
|
Among the many changes to sweep American literacy education has been a move toward whole class instruction. Nonetheless, children still bring to literacy a wide range of experiences and competencies. How, then, might teachers best support a literate community yet still meet the needs of individual readers? For Fountas and Pinnell, the answer lies in guided reading, which allows children to develop as individual readers within the context of a small group. They provide one of the richest, most comprehensive guided reading resource models available today and the first systematic offering of instructional support for guided reading adherents.
Guided Reading was written for K-3 classroom teachers, reading resource teachers, teacher educators, preservice teachers, researchers, administrators, and staff developers. Based on the authors' nine years of research and development, it explains how to create a balanced literacy program based on guided reading and supported by read aloud, shared reading, interactive writing, and other approaches. While there is an entire chapter devoted solely to the process by which children become literate, every chapter clearly presents the theoretical underpinnings of the practices it suggests.
Also included are guidelines for:
-
· observation and assessment
-
· dynamic grouping of readers
-
· creating sets of leveled books
-
· selecting and introducing books
-
· teaching for strategies
-
· classroom management.
Best of all, there are well over 2,500 leveled books in the Appendixes, along with many other reproducible resources that teachers will use for years to come.
"Good first teaching is the foundation of education and the right of every child," assert the authors.
We are very excited to bring this strategy to our already successful reading instruction program in the Dennis Township School District. Please feel free to contact the Office of Curriculum and Instruction should you have any questions (609) 861-2821 x501.
