Language Arts: Guided Reading

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Language Arts Guided Reading

• Big Blocks
• Susan Roberts, Reading Specialist
• Jefferson County Schools

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Probably the single most important factor in a
childs initial reading instruction is his or his
teacher. No books, no curriculum, no computer
can replace the enormous value of good
human-to-human teaching.
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National Reading Panel Research (December 2000)

• Less than 1/3 of fourth graders are reading
  adequately (April 1995)
• Now we know that reading must be taught
  systematically and explicitly.
• Research has been systematically analyzed and the
  most effective methods for teaching reading
  skills have been identified.
• We must have balanced literacy in our classrooms!
• Reading is an enormously complex activity!

TEACHING READING IS ROCKET SCIENCE!
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Four Blocks Research

• Both NRP and Duke and Pearson (2002) agree that
  explicit teaching, including an explanation of
  what and how the strategy should be used, teacher
  modeling and thinking aloud about the strategy,
  guided practice with the strategy and support for
  students applying the strategy independently are
  the steps needed to effectively teach any
  comprehension strategy.

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Guided ReadingFour Blocks Style

• Always focused on comprehension
• Teachers choose the material and purpose
• Students are guided to use reading strategies
• All types of reading materials are used

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Goals of Guided Reading in Big Blocks Classrooms

• to teach comprehension strategies
• to teach students how to read and respond to all
  types of literature including content texts
• to develop background knowledge and vocabulary
• to provide as much instructional-level material
  as possible
• to maintain the self-confidence and motivation of
  struggling readers

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What is comprehension?

• The different kinds of thinking that we do as we
  read are referred to as comprehension strategies.
  Good readers need to use some strategies on
  almost all text, including
• Connecting relevant background knowledge
• Predicting
• Visualizing
• Self-monitoring and self-correction

• Using fix-up strategies such as
• Re-reading
• Picture / context clues

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What is comprehension?

• Ask for help
• Determining important ideas and events
• Drawing conclusions
• Making inferences
• Deciding what you think responding
• Compare and contrast to what you already know
• Summarizing

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Other comprehension strategies might include

• Understanding figurative language
• Following the plot with understanding
• Determining character traits
• Extracting information from charts, graphs, maps,
  and other visuals
• Determining the objectivity or bias of an author

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Effective Guided ReadingThree Segments

• Before Reading
• During Reading
• After Reading

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In Big Blocks classrooms, the Guided Reading
Block is approximately 180 minutes per week and
includes the following

• Before-Reading Phase
• Before beginning a selection, students must
• access or build prior knowledge
• make connections
• make predictions
• identify the purpose for reading

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Students need to begin thinking about the text
before they begin reading the text. This time is
brief, leaving the majority of the time for
actual reading.

• (Allington, 2000)

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During-Reading Phase

• While reading, students must
• question and monitor what they are reading and
  thinking about
• make inferences
• visualize
• continue to make connections
• continue to set predictions

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Students need uninterrupted periods of time to
read and think, so this phase should be the
longest of any Guided Reading lesson. For every
minute spent talking about reading (including
before and after), students should spend at least
one minute actually reading.

• (Pearson and Fielding, 1991)

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Formats for Grouping Students during Reading

• Plan for students to participate in various
  grouping formats.
• Exemplary teachers were found to teach lessons to
  the whole class, to small groups, and to
  individual students.
• (Pressley, Allington, Wharton-McDonald, Block,
  and Morrow, 2001)
• Guided reading formats should vary based on the
  purpose of the lesson.

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Whole Group, Multilevel Instruction (Big Blocks,
p. 105)
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Partner Reading (Big Blocks, p. 106)

• Carefully assign partners.
• Decide how often you need to change partners.
• Decide where partners will meet.
• Decide how to handle absent partners.
• Decide how partners will read each selection.
  (Variations in partner reading)
• Make sure partners have a purpose for reading.
• Set a time limit.
• Provide a filler for partners who finish before
  the rest of the class.
• Model the expected behavior.
• Be visible.

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During Reading- Partner Reading

• Variations
• Take turn days
• Ask question days
• Sticky note days
• You decide days

Variations Poster
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Reading Teams

• Think of reading teams of two carefully selected
  partnerships making a foursome.
• The same concerns apply as with partners.
• Each team has an assigned team leader who ensures
  that all members participate.
• Teams may also need a recorder or a speaker.

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Formats

• Three- Ring Circus
• (Big Blocks p. 108)
• This is a wonderful way to allow students to read
  a common selection in the most efficient way for
  them. In three- ring circus, some students read
  by themselves, some students read with partners,
  and some students read with you. These groups
  are not static and change with the reading
  selection.

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Formats

• Book Club Groups
• (Big Blocks p. 109)

• Three to five titles chosen
• Titles area connected in some way
• Managed choice (book passes)
• Groups meet daily to read and discuss their books

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Formats

• Literature Circles
• (Big Blocks p. 111)
• Like book club books, however, in literature
  circles students generally

• Read on their own and only meet in groups to
  discuss what was read.
• Determine as a group how much to read between
  meetings.
• Have specific roles they play in the discussion
  groups.
• Choose books connected by genre, author, theme or
  topic.

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Exemplary classrooms provide

• Conversation about the texts students read
• (Allington Johnston, 2001)
• Literate conversations mimic the conversations
  real readers in the real world have about real
  books they really want to talk about!
• Conduct discussions with readers as conversations
  not interrogations.
• Model types of connections readers make (T-S,
  T-T, T-W).
• Arrange for students to have literate
  conversations in small groups.

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Literate Conversations

• Increase the number of people with whom your
  students can have conversations through use of
  Questioning the Author and Oprah Winfrey
  strategies.

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Questioning the Author

• We do not just understand what the author is
  saying, rather we figure out what the author
  means.
• If you have you ever found your students cannot
  answer the questions because the passage didnt
  say! then you know why students need their
  reading guided by a strategy called Questioning
  the Author.

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Planning a QTA Lesson

• The teacher carefully reads the text and decides
• what the important ideas are what problems
  students might have with the ideas
• how much of the text to read before stopping for
  discussion
• what queries to pose to help students construct
  meaning
• The teachers job is to pose queries that can
  help students use what they know to figure out
  what the author means.
• QTA continues with the teacher telling the
  students how much to read and posing both
  initiating and follow-up queries.
• Figure out what the author means.not just what
  he says!

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Oprah Winfrey Strategy

• Several students read the same book.
• Teacher plays the role of Oprah (initially) and
  interviews them about their lives and roles.
• Invite the students to appear on your show.
• Arrange chairs and welcome them.
• Begin with broad questions (tell me a bit about
  yourself).
• What seemed to be the problem?
• Ask others if they agree with her.
• You may even ask the audience questions.

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Literate Conversations

• When students engage in conversations about what
  they have read, their understanding improves.
  (Fall, Webb, Cudowsky, 2000)
• Exemplary classrooms provide
• A balance of question and answer sessions

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Literate Conversations

• Ask more open-ended questions
• Is there anything you want to know more about?
• What are you wondering about?
• Does this book remind you of anything else you
  have read?
• Has anything like this ever happened to you?
• Did anyone in the story remind you of someone you
  know?
• Were you surprised by anything in this story?

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Think-Along / Think Aloud

• Thinking is the essence of reading!
• Reading is more than just saying words!
• Reading is thinking!

Hmmm
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• To create classroom conversations, students think
  about three types of connections (Keene and
  Zimmerman (1997)

• Text to self Do any of you have a pet that is
  creating problems like the one in the story?
• Text to text What other book have we read where
  a person was brave?
• Text to world Has anyone ever ridden on a
  subway? What was it like?

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• Thinking as we read may be modeled through
  Think-Alouds.
• Teachers may wish to use sentence starters to
  think aloud about the connections
• This reminds me of .
• I remember something like this happened to me
  when
• I read another book where the character
• This is like in our school when

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More strategies

• Bookmarks, Sticky Notes, and Highlighters
• ERT Everyone Read ToFind out / Figure out
  (Big Blocks p. 116)
• Story Maps (Big Blocks p. 150)
• T-Charts (Big Blocks p. 111) (graphic p. 149)
• Students write an entry from the text in the left
  column and respond with their connections in the
  right column.
• Predicting Guess Yes or No (Big Blocks p. 112)
• GIST (Big Blocks p. 113)

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Informational Text Lessons Use graphic
organizers

• KWL (Big Blocks p. 122)
• Feature Matrix
• Informational Web (Semantic Web) (Big Blocks p.
  119)
• Data Charts
• Timelines
• Venn diagram (Compare Contrast) (Big Blocks p.
  118 120)
• Cause and Effect Causal Chain (Big Blocks p.
  121)

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After-Reading Phase

• After reading, students must follow-up their
  predictions, connections, and purpose. They may
  need to
• summarize
• identify important information
• evaluate or apply the information from the text
  to a specific problem or situation
• engage in conversations
• create a written response to reflect their
  thinking

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The after-reading activity should be challenging
and move beyond the right answer to the
teachers question but not so involved that it
takes longer to respond than it did to read.
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Errors and Misunderstandings

• Teachers express anxiety about their redefined
  role.
• Primary purpose is to improve comprehension.
  Other Blocks provide an appropriate context for
  skills instructions such as phonics, grammar, and
  mechanics.
• Round-robin reading is not a part of this model.
• Non-prescriptive every classroom looks
  different.

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GOOD-BY ROUND ROBIN By Dr. Timothy Rasinski and
Dr. Michael Opitz
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Question What do I do about worksheets and
workbook pages?

• as little as possible
• Three criteria for a good worksheet

• Must involve some reading and/or writing
• Majority of my class (75-80) must be able to do
  it
• Students must need work on that skill

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Four Blocks Research

• Comprehension is what its all about!
• Reading comprehension and how to teach it is
  probably the area of literacy about which we have
  the most knowledge and the most consensus.
• It is also probably the area that gets the least
  attention in the classroom.

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