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Guided reading

Yrs 1-4 • Common in NZ classrooms• Encourages children to use strategies

that they have already learnt in shared reading such as: Predicting, Cross-checking and confirming, and Self-correcting

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Guided reading Years 5 - 8

• Provides opportunities to talk, think, and read through a text

• e.g. with stories, attend to:• Character• Plot• Setting• Style• Form of text• Language features

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Method

• Small group of 3-7• Each student has copy of the text• Before: Teacher selection of text and

purpose. Introduce text to children - activate prior knowledge

• During: Children read, silently or quietly to themselves. Stop at points in the text, discuss

• After: Questioning, revisiting the text

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Preparation for Guided Reading

• Choosing text:Ready to Read and School Journal materials are already graded

for shared, guided or independent reading. Choose text that can be read with 90-95% accuracy.

• Website for teaching ideas:1. Ready to Read Junior SchoolMinistry of Education – TKI website http://www.tki.org.nz/r/literacy_numeracy/professional/teachers_notes/ready_to_read/index_e.php2. School Journals – TKI websitehttp://www.tki.org.nz/e/r/literacy_numeracy/professional/teachers_notes/school_journal/index.php

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Before reading - Introduce text

• Work out your purpose for the lesson – what are you going to focus on?

• Activate prior knowledge (recall Schema theory)

• Try to link pupil’s past knowledge with the ideas that will be in the text

• Talk about the title, the cover page – figure out what kind of story/article this will be

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During reading

• Children read ‘chunks’ (silently or quietly to themselves) and then stop and discuss text

• If it is a short text, one or two pages, pupils can read whole text to end

• Use a whiteboard to record main ideas, etc.• Clarify difficult words as they come up, e.g., in A

pocket for Corduroy, what is a spool? Try to give synonyms, e.g., round. Give features e.g., made of wood. Give purpose e.g., to wind thread on

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After reading

• Review what you wanted pupils to learn• Follow-up activities:

– Rereading in pairs or independently– Making text structure e.g., story web,

flowcharts etc.– Retelling, writing the story

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Strengths & Weaknesses

PROs CONs

Connecting to prior knowledge seems a useful thing to do – to build on existing knowledge

Poor readers will struggle to read the words and will get left behind

Guided reading is a way to get more deeply into the text, achieve a more in-depth understanding

Guided reading only helps to understand the specific text taught – not comprehension in general

Discussing the text will help to increase understanding and clarify new vocabulary

Comprehension depends on fluent reading and extensive reading of texts at appropriate level of difficulty

Studying the way the writer has written the text can be helpful for pupils’ own writing

Guided reading advantages the better readers who have better prior knowledge and vocabulary