Stacy Toedter's guided reading video

I chose Modeling Guided Reading FAQ simply because it had the most views and I wanted to see why that was. The clip was fairly short, only 9 minutes, but it answered a lot of questions about guided reading. It is in interview format and starts out asking why is it important for teachers to do guided reading. I was interested in hearing this answer because in class it has become known that guided reading is important to do in our classrooms. The teacher's answer was that it provides extra support to struggling readers. As teachers, we can differentiate instruction til we find a strategy that works for the particular student. With guided reading we can introduce new skills to students who may be ready to move on in the group but still be able to provide explicit instruction to those who are not ready to move on. When asked how often and how long should guided reading be done, she answered every day and she normally does it for 45 minutes a day, meeting in groups for 15 minutes each (3 groups a day). But from my understanding, guided reading should be done for longer than that, like 45 minutes per group..im a little unclear about that. She answers that in guided reading, they introduce reading strategies and practice skills that have already been taught. The books are in levels and depending on what level the student is in, that is the level in which they choose their books from. It is individualized to help each student become better readers. The teacher knows each student's strengths and weaknesses and thats how they decide what to work on in guided reading, and that is also how they can group the students. She also mentioned book bags, which are just clear plastic bags that children can choose books based on their interest and level and they can take these books home with them to read with their parents. I think parental involvement is a very important part in a child's education. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txC-Qo_8GiU