Guided Reading Groups: What to Teach

Guided Reading Groups: What to Teach

Figuring out unknown words—decoding and vocabulary

·  Using the cue systems

·  Rereading

·  Self-correcting

·  Applying prior knowledge

·  Substituting synonyms

·  Looking at prefixes and suffixes

·  Etymology of words

·  How to consult a dictionary

Understanding Text

·  Determining the most important ideas

·  Activating prior knowledge

·  Reciprocal teaching (predicting, asking questions, summarizing, and clarifying)

·  Creating mental and visual images

·  Making inferences

·  Retelling

·  Skimming and scanning

·  Thinking aloud

·  Reading nonfiction and other genres

·  Understanding the story through graphic organizers

·  Writing and sharing summaries and responses to text

Self-Monitoring and Self-Evaluating

·  Choose books to read independently

·  Apply skills and strategies independently

·  Maintain a reading log and/or reading record

·  Seek help when comprehension breaks down

·  Know when understanding takes place

Reading Orally

·  Check fluency

·  Monitor self-corrections

Responding to and/or Interpreting Text

·  Analyze texts- story structure, literary elements

·  Compare texts by theme

·  Connect texts to life and other texts

·  Use response logs

·  Incorporate readers theatre

·  Generate questions on a literary level

·  Study and compare authors and illustrators

·  Recommend books

Conversations by Regie Routman, 2000

Challenging the Fluent Reader

·  Push them toward other genres

·  Show them other books by the same author

·  Have them read about an author’s life and think about how her experiences influenced her writing (topic)

·  Have them investigate what the author did in his life that lead him to be a successful writer

·  Have them think across genres (for example, consider the research involved in writing fiction)

·  Help them create a text-set around a topic of interest (for example, poetry, articles, picture books, a short story about growing old). How do these authors handle the same topic in similar and different ways?

·  Have them read all the books in a series. What do you notice about the author’s style?

·  Have them reread favorite texts. What did you discover in revisiting a literary work that you may not have noticed before?

·  Help them form a reading group with people who have similar interests. What can you learn from one another?

·  Help them form a reading group with people who have very different interests. What can you learn from one another?

·  Help them form adult-student reading groups. (Students form a book club with their parents. After reading the selected book, they all meet after school to discuss it.)

What are the Key Principles of Guided Reading?

·  The teacher supports children in reading materials they cannot read totally independently.

·  The teacher helps students learn reading strategies to apply to other reading situations.

·  Can be done individually or with a small group (no more than six) to support understandings of any aspect of reading.

·  The teacher makes Guided Reading decisions based on observations of what the child can or cannot do to construct meaning.

·  It is usually done with a text not totally familiar to the child.

·  The children in the group need further work on the same type of problem.

·  The children learn from and support each other.

What should Strategy Instruction accomplish?

·  Teach strategies that will help students problem solve reading difficulties.

·  Help children recognize cues in the text to problem solve reading difficulties.

·  Show children how and why and which strategies to select and employ to ensure that meaning is gained and maintained during reading and beyond.

·  Develop independent readers who question, consider alternatives, and make informed choices as they seek meaning.

·  Empower children to become independent problem-solvers who are viewed as long-term learners.