Guided Reading

Last Friday, my school had a Professional Development day.  I'm one of those teachers who actually looks forward to these days because I love getting new ideas for my classroom.  (Plus, I tend multi-task quite a bit on my computer so I typically get some prep and planning done as well).   This time the focus was guided reading.

GR books prepped with Post-its!

I really like Guided Reading because it's a chance to work on specific strategies that really push kids forward in their reading.  I meet with one guided reading group per day during Literacy Work Stations time.  I wish I could meet with the kids more often, but we just don't have the hours in the day.  Instead, I follow up with individual students during conferring time in Reader's Workshop (while the rest of the class is independent reading).  My guided reading groups are homogenous based on our beginning of the year assessment.  As the year goes on, I will probably adjust them a bit but they are working great for now.

During Guided Reading,  I introduce the book (typically with a "picture walk"), discuss important vocabulary words, and share a strategy for decoding or comprehension that I want the kids to try during reading.  Then I set the kids off to read quietly.  I lean in on each one to hear them read out-loud briefly, encourage them to read fluently, and help with decoding issues as they come up.

Recently, I've started preparing a reading response for after the kiddos finish reading.  Depending on the level of the group and the skill we are working on the response varies.  Sometimes I have them work on reading new words, other times I have them retell the story or consider whether their predictions came true.  This is a great quick assessment to see if the kids are really getting the skill.