Guided reading is reading with children. The goal of Guided Reading is to teach students to independently use reading strategies at their instructional level.

Guided Reading provides time to work with small groups of children on text that closely matches the children's needs, abilities, and interests. The goal is to help students learn effective text strategies to use while reading. The teacher facilitates student awareness that the ultimate reason for reading is to gather meaning from print.

Guided Reading Lesson Format:

Fluent Reading and Writing:

• Select 3-5 known high-frequency words and/or letters for the students to write on marker boards to build writing fluency. Have the group chorally read a familiar text.

  Running Record
  
• Students' partner read or whisper read while I take a RR on one student reading yesterday's new book.
• The group chorally reads yesterday's new book.Teaching Point
  
• Design a brief explicit instructional lesson based on the needs that were visible during the RR.
  New Book
  
• A new book is introduced which may include today's teaching point. We talk about the book using the pictures to predict and locate tricky words. Next, the students independently whisper read the book. I provide support as needed, however, the goal is to have students read and use the TP strategies independently. Then the book is read again chorally to promote fluency.
  
• The students use magnetic letters, tactile letters, Wikki Sticks, pointers,linking charts, or other manipulatives to reinforce the teaching point skill taught in small group.
• Time permitting, have the students orally compose a group sentence about today's Running Record Book. The teaching point is incorporated into the sentence.
  
  **Research tell us that "kids who read most, read best." (Anderson, et. al., Becoming a Nation of Readers). Thus, children need readable texts that they re-read again and again to practice their reading strategies and develop fluency.
  
  In Guided Reading everything is learned within the context of a book. The focus includes:The Five Big Ideas of Early Literacy:
  
  1. Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and use sounds in words.
  
  2. Alphabetic Principle: The ability to associate sounds with letters and use these sounds to form words.
  
  3. Fluency in Reading: The effortless, automatic ability to read words in text.
  
  4. Vocabulary: The ability to understand (receptive) and use (expressive) words to gain and convey meaning.
  
  5. Comprehension: The ability to understand what you are reading and convey meaning in writing.
  
  The strategies that are taught in small Guided Reading groups and Literacy Centers focus on these essential elements.
  
  A great website describing the essential components of reading is found at:
  
  The 5 Essential Elements of Reading
  (Special thanks to Mrs. Greene for this wonderful information on her web site.) **Here is a resource with lots of practical information on implementing guided reading and conferencing in the primary classroom.(Click to purchase)