Meredith Monserez's Guided Reading Video

The YouTube clip that I found is titled, Guided Reading For Elementary Classrooms, and was created by Kelly Mikesell. Her video is directed towards teachers or future teachers that may be questioning the usage and overall importance of guided readings in the elementary classroom. She begins by sharing with her viewers how she organizes her guided reading resources. She shows how she has designated a small tub to each child in the classroom. On each tub the child's name and the days of the week the child does their guided reading. In each child's tub is an assortment of books for their reading level. This not only keeps the teacher organized, but it also provides the child with a nice routine that will help keep them organized as well. She also shares that she separates the children into three different reading levels. These levels are non-readers, pre-readers, and readers. These levels are quite different than the five levels we have been learning about in class.
Although the children are separated into different reading levels, she still follows the same plan of all of them. To begin, she has them read a review book. This gives them a nice "warm up" and helps to boost their confidence in reading. While the children are reading their "warm up" books, she as the teacher takes a running record of their reading. After they have finished their "warm up" books, she now introduces the new story. She introduces the new story with a discussion about the cover and a picture walk. The cover discussion gets their minds moving and thinking about what they are about to read. The picture walk is useful because this is the time that the teacher can point out any key words or any vocabulary that the students may need for reading the story and also prepares them for reading.
Opposed to what we have been learning in class, Kelly Mikesell strongly believes that children should read at their own pace, and should absolutely not read together. While the students are reading, the teacher is supposed to walk around and listen carefully to each of the students. The teacher is supposed to pay close attention to the strategies that the child is using and the strategies that still need to be discussed.
After the reading many different engaging activities can take place. Some examples are to practice phoneme blending and segmenting with words (like the activity we did in class with the letter cards), writing with shaving cream, beginning sounds review game, and creating books based on stories. She concludes that it is important to always end with a smile and excitement to hopefully make the children excited to come back to the table to read.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mnwPrCTFQ&feature=related