Guided reading

Guided reading is "small group reading instruction designed to provide differentiated teaching that supports students in developing reading proficiency". Another study from Canada indicated that about 80% of 25 middle school students who received Guided Reading had an increase in reading proficiency. Although there are positive aspects to this type of reading instruction, there are also two main challenges that exist at every grade level. According to Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, "some students will work on very basic reading skills such as word analysis and comprehending simple texts" while other students may be working on more advanced reading skills and strategies with increasingly challenging texts. In addition, "all students need instructional support so they can expand their competence across a greater variety of increasingly challenging texts". Guided Reading is a complex approach and teachers are essential in the development and execution of a Balanced Literacy program. A critical component of the Reading Workshop is text selection; it must be purposeful and have the needs of the learners in mind. According to Fountas and Pinnell,

This model is used for children who are reading at NC level 2C to 3C/B. Generally two guided sessions will be needed to read a book. The first session generally focuses on the book introduction, strategy check and independent reading. Whilst children are reading at their own pace, it is important to start to introduce an element of silent reading. This is to develop the skills of meaning making when reading independently. Because books at this stage are generally longer, it is not possible to read the whole book in one session. Once the children have done some reading in the session they can be asked to read the rest of the book prior to the second session. This session then focuses on returning to the text and responding to the text. These are the more able children and not those at level 1

Readers working at a NC level of 3B upwards will need the fluent model of guided reading. Here it is not necessary for children to read the text during the guided sessions. At these levels children can generally decode the words. What is important is that they discuss the meaning that they make from the text which will form the basis of the discussion. Therefore, the session tends to focus on return to text and response to the text with the strategy check implicit in the discussions.