Guided Reading

Guided Reading Video

The video that I watched did not show an example of how the teacher does guided reading. It was informative and I liked that she broke it down so it was easy to follow. She had all the steps and strategies she uses when she does a guided reading lesson. She has her students spilt into three levels. She meets with her advanced readings at least twice a week and the readers that need more help everyday. The lessons are between fifteen and twenty minutes. Guided reading is so important because you can see what the students know, what needs to be worked on, which reading strategies the students use when reading and what other strategies could be taught to help the students more.
The students start out by reading a review book that helps them warm up their reading skills and the teacher can assess their reading by using a “Running Record.” She can see how far the students have come and where they still struggle. She keeps the books in bins that are labeled with the student’s name and what days they meet each week. When she introduces a new story, they always discuss the front cover and they do a picture walk where they talk about the pictures in the story. This helps them prepare for the reading. She also goes over key words and new vocabulary that is introduced in the story. Finally the students read the new story out loud. She has the students read by themselves so they can go at their own pace. She listens to each student carefully to see what strategies they use when they come across the new vocabulary or other hard words. When the children are done reading she goes over a mini-lesson that addresses the main issue the children had. For example if they had trouble with beginning or ending sounds or they revisit sight words. She makes this interesting by using a game or fun activity. At the end the students reread the story using their new strategies. She ends the guided reading with a smile and compliments so the students are happy when they get to come to the reading table.
The teacher uses some of what we talked about in class, like the front cover discussion and the picture walk. These are great things to do with the students to help them read more efficiently using the pictures to help. She does a mini lesson between reading the book the first and last time, which I think is good because the story is still fresh in their minds.