Guided Reading

Guided Reading is individualized language-based instruction in a small group setting. The teacher facilitates a discussion around a story connected to the students' prior knowledge. There is no right or wrong answer. The teacher takes what the student knows and guides them in the direction they need to go. The purpose of guided reading is to create confident, independent readers who always feel successful. The benefits of working in small groups are that students have a greater share in classroom discussion, it is easier for the student to listen to the teacher and her classmates, and it enables students to make the best use of their learning time. This creates students who can generate more ideas, have more opportunities to use oral language, learn from each other, teach each other, and recognize that their own experiences and thoughts are valued in the classroom.

Guided Reading allows room for differentiation within the separate reading groups and with the independent work students do in workstations. Guided Reading groups can be formed based on interest, topic, skills, and fluency. The joy of using Guided Reading is that any text can be used to create a lesson. Developing readers often use leveled readers designed to build word recognition and fluency. Advanced readers can use menus, catalogs, newspapers, and other forms of print to determine important ideas, draw inferences, synthesize information, and study cause and effect. The skills that can be taught in Guided Reading groups are endless. Using nontraditional texts in the reading group keeps the advanced reader excited and engaged.

Parents often ask, "What are the other students doing while the teacher is meeting with the small group?" For the classroom teacher the management portion of guided reading often comes through the use of reading and writing workstations. A lesson is taught to the whole group. Then, the class is sent out to their workstations to review the skills presented that day and from previous lessons. While the teacher meets with two or three reading groups the other students are working independently or with partners in their workstations. By the end of a typical school week the teacher has met with each group three to four times. The workstation activities are planned and prepared to give the students a feeling of independence, and might include handwriting, word study, listening, creative writing and buddy reading, for example. The use of workstations is especially well-suited for an all girls classroom. We know that girls need bigger blocks of time to work in and the opportunity to communicate or "chat" with peers while they work. The use of large blocks of language arts time, seating at tables rather than desks, and flexible rules on talking in the classroom creates an environment where ample time and communication is possible.

In summary, Guided Reading provides an excellent introduction and continued support for children's literacy. Children experience success as they read, and receive individualized instruction specific to their needs and interests. It creates an evolving classroom that grows as the student does.

Kristen D. Brewer, M.Ed., Lower School Language Arts and Social Studies Coordinator