Guided Reading and Graphs

- Guided reading is a teaching strategy used by educators to promote interest in books and the development reading skills in children of all ages. It involves a teacher scaffolding children’s learning at an individual level by assisting children only when necessary as they read aloud in their carefully assigned group(s) to decode words and comprehend what you read/was read to you.

Confused at all? Well, don’s be! Below is an easy to follow checklist of the essential parts in a high quality guided reading lesson:

Children are grouped in a purposeful manner that takes in to consideration thing such as interest and ability.

Children have some influence/control over what they are reading.

Children’s learning is being monitored by a teacher as they work, especially decoding.

The teacher is ready and willing to assist any child who they realize needs some extra help with their reading development, or asks for the teacher for it.

When monitoring groups the majority of your time is spent working with the lower level children, who need the most assistance.

Children’s comprehension of the content is being developed/promoted by the teacher through the use of various strategies and activities.

• Video response

Overall I really enjoyed watching the video. It was very informative. The only way that I think it could be improved would be by giving teachers more strategies for after teaching. I felt that overall the video was lacking in this area. Other than that though, I really liked everything. I think that many of the ideas I would be able to used in my own room. I especially like the ideas of having cards to show vocabulary on. 

• http://www.readinga-z.com/ is an amazing reading resource for elementary grade educators! It provides pretty much everything needed to teach a reading other than students! The resources are set up in categories beginning with what books to use for what level (with access to the books) and ending with information on teaching special populations of children. Additionally, in the other sections it talks about  topics from developing reading skills to methods for assessing, and all that in between. The site has built in tools for organizing the materials you like, so you will not lose them either. However, there is one thing about the site that I did not. You have to be a (paying) member, or sign up for a temporary free trial to actually access any of the the materials.

• Specific ways to use items from this site for guided reading:

Promote ESL children’s comprehension of by having them read the same story as the rest of their group in their native language, before reading it as a group and discussing the content.

To find and provide reading material to the classroom that matches child(ren)’s specific interest as well as learning objectives.

To get synopsis's of books from that you can read to children before having students rank the options in order of interest.

Look at the preplanned lessons to get ideas for facilitating groups, and for how to use strategies such as questioning to improve children’s comprehension of a story.

Provides templates for assessing reading in different ways, for various traits and in multiple languages.

Assessing Informally to get the Full Picture

Standardized test are not the only assessments that can show children's learning; there are actually a variety of assessments that teachers can use to gain knowledge about children's learning ability. These assessments provide different and more in-depth information about the students than standardizes one do. Certain types are even specifically geared for assessing certain reading skills, and can "pin-point" where a child is on the learning spectrum at that moment. It is a great idea to begin the year with one of these telling assessments (Ex. pictured to the left), so you will know what skills need to be reviewed, retaught or skipped all together.

3 Types of informal assessments that reveal information about one's reading skill(s):

• Cloze Test-

• This form of assessment was unknown to be prior to reading about it in this article. It is used for closure, and to assess final learning. Asks questions (using styles like fill in the blank) that one must have prior about a topic knowledge to answer correctly. (Pictured Right)

• Running Records-
• Observe a child, preferably while being unseen, and take notes of everything the child can be observed doing. However, you should not make judgements or try to explain anything internal; just leave all emotion out!
• I love the idea of keeping these records in a small notebook that you keep in the classroom. I think that I would make copies of the notes written in here, and put them in the child's assessment files to keep them from getting lost, have a spare something happens, to and because they would be easier to accessed and compare to other assessments in this spot.

• Informal Reading Inventories (IRV)-

• These are so handy to use when working with children. Many assessments can not be done in the moment, but an IRV can. Additionally, I realized from this information that if I was looking for something specific, but could not find it that I could create it myself.
• A fabulous idea by Teacher 2 Teacher for the organization of one's classroom IRV assessment materials is to keep all the templates for different IRV assessments in a binder. You could add articles and information from professionals about assessing to reference, too. 

Assessments are an unbelievably important tool for teachers, and informal ones should be conducted routinely throughout the year on every student. By doing this all of the children 's learning growth can be proven, and could be utilized later to show parents, school administrators, etc. how the child has grown as they have been in your care. Adversely, if the child is not showing gains you want to document this to show people as well, since it can indicate something developmentally wrong. These are actually even more important to have in my opinion.

I would love to hear about your thoughts on this topic. Specifically, I am wondering have you heard of any of these informal assessments before, or seen them being used in a classroom environment? And which do you believe to be the most useful form of assessment for educators to use? Least?

Guiding Emergent Readers

Guided reading is a concept well known to teachers, but often in the classroom the teacher seems to be pushing children more than guiding them as they read. This is incorrect to do, though. As Guided Reading with Emergent Readers explains, "guided reading should be thought of as a time for children to practice what they know about reading in front of a supportive person." Doesn't this sound nice?

Teachers should not as much be leading the reading group during this, as they should scaffolding the individual children. What children will need during guided reading practice will vary as their learning develops, and based on their prior knowledge.

• At beginning of school children are not ready for guided reading, yet. Reading instruction will involve encouraging children to want to read. At this stage they are not reading, yet. Big books are great for children at this stage.

 Observe children’s interest in learning to read and their attention span to know when they are ready to move past this stage and on to the next. The two behaviors go hand-in-hand in deciding whether or not a child is ready for a guided reading lesson. You can see these by noticing how long children look at books, if they understand meaning, their ability to create alternate stories, and so fourth.

• More responsibility is given to the children as they begin guided reading. The books read are based off of the children's ability and interest. The teacher prepares student for reading by learning about the subject matter, and reminding them of successful reading strategies to use.

Guided Reading does not end when the last page is finished. After guided reading teachers facilitate a discussion incorporating teaching points the instruction wants the children to learn about. Teaching points include many different topics.

• Retelling the Story: 20 ideas for retelling stories

• Monitoring Meaning: Add a chart with questions to ask self.