Recently my chapter of KDP hosted a great PD workshop on Guided Reading. A trusted colleague of mine who is an expert in this area shared her knowledge, experiences, and resources with the initiates and members on how to implement running records to determine a student's guided reading level. This informative session included discussions on how to mark miscues, analyze a student's errors, and scoring for comprehension questions.
At the end of the session, where a meeting of the minds led us all on the same path, it was suggested to have a follow-up session to learn about what happens after a running record is taken? This sparked my ideas for this blog. So what do we do now that we have taken our running record and have a guided reading level for our students? Here are some "next steps" to start off with:
A key to a successful Guided Reading session is planning. Once you have your data and organize it, planning a lesson (like others) will help you to head in the right direction. I always take the consideration of student interests, past favorite books, and genre into book selection. I also refer to my plans for Readers' Workshop to help students reinforce skills we are practicing in class. Guided Reading offers opportunity to review and/or re-teach skills and strategies. This can be confused with strategy groups when the teacher meets with a small group of students to focus on a skill/strategy only. The purpose of Guided Reading extends beyond this, when the teacher can use the text as direct instruction, listen to students read and judge fluency, and have students answer specific W.A.B questions (see previous blog) throughout the lesson. Keep in mind that you may not have as much time for Guided Reading as you do other parts of your reading block, so eliminate questions you might have covered, or questions that are similar to ones students have already answered successfully during individual reading time well. This will narrow the focus to questions that need more work; usually the "about the text" and "beyond the text" questions.
My goal for the next blog is to add on to this mini-series with more "next steps" to lead you in the right direction of implementing Guided Reading lessons that are effective and successful. After planning is complete, the real magic happens when students sit with you to read...
Final Thoughts: Keep practicing how to take running records, keep your student information organized, keep thinking about book selection, (series books are great for Guided Reading!) keep planning what questions you will review during a lesson, and keep in tune with my next blog where we dive into the Guided Reading lesson!
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