Setting the Stage for Guided Reading-Part 3 of 4: Making Time

Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay 

Hello again!  It’s time to look at part 3 of this 4-part series on guided reading.  For this part, we are going to tackle TIME.  No matter what the initiative or practice is, time is always the most cited obstacle to implementation.  Here’s the thing….there is as much time as you make.  I never get lots of “Amen!” and cheers when I say that, but it’s true. In fact, the notion that we don’t have time is one
that we have to train our brains to challenge. 

Instead of “There’s no time for ______.”, I can choose to think “There’s time for _____ if I _______.”  Now, the way I finish that sentence may be uncomfortable-- (There’s time for exercise if I wake up 30 minutes earlier.  There’s time for reading a book if I put my Ipad down. There’s time to write a blog post if I write it before I begin another project.)--but it’s the truth. We all have the same amount of time.  What makes our time productive or unproductive is how we prioritize the activities we do during that time. 

In regard to guided reading, teachers and administrators will often look at their schedules and try to figure out where they can fit in time for guided reading; however, the better approach is to decide when you will do guided reading, then structure your schedule around that.  If guided reading is the heart of your literacy instruction, then make it so.  Instead of  “We didn’t get around to guided reading today because we had to ______.” ask yourself “How can I incorporate ____ into guided reading groups instead of a whole class lesson?” or “While I am working with guided reading groups, how could the other students practice _____?”

For example, in a 90-minute block for language arts, I recommend prioritizing at least 45-60 minutes for guided reading.  If I typically take 30 minutes to work on phonics as a whole group (please don’t) and another 30 for shared reading as a whole group, and 20 minutes to do a error-riddled DOL sentence for grammar practice (again...please don’t), then that only leaves me 10 minutes for writing (not grammar), independent reading, and guided reading. So let’s use our new phrasing and see how we could change this. 

There’s time for guided reading if you do the phonics and word study in small groups instead of as a whole group lesson.  Add about 5-7 minutes on to each guided reading group and make the teacher table a rotation so that every student gets introduced to the concepts.

There’s time for guided reading if you use a more effective grammar approach like Jeff Anderson’s Invitation to Notice protocol outlined in his books Patterns of Power, Everyday Editing, Mechanically Inclined to name a few. This approach not only requires less time but makes a bigger impact. Use the saved time for guided reading.

There’s time for guided reading if you do the “I do” and “We do” portions of a shared reading lesson together and let students to the “You do” portion during literacy stations while you work with guided reading groups.

The point is….there is always a way to do the things you see as valuable.  If you complete the “There’s time for ____ if I ___” statement in a way that makes you think “but I don’t know how to do that…” then guess what? That’s okay!  Now you have something to learn.

If you don’t see how you can teach a lesson in 10 minutes, start searching for videos and information about mini-lessons. If you don’t know what the Jeff Anderson grammar routine is, look it up, watch YouTube videos, go to trainings. If you’re not sure how to do literacy stations, start talking to teachers who seem to have some systems that are working.  Join some Twitter chats, go to the Teaching Channel (www.teachingchannel.org) and scour their videos for glimpses inside real classrooms to see how it can be done. Read some books like Who’s Doing the Work, The Daily Five, and anything Fountas & Pinnell write. 

If time has been your primary obstacle for implementing guided reading in the past, then you may simply need to acquire some new knowledge and skills that will allow you to see and feel comfortable with different options for using your time more efficiently. I’d love to hear how you make time for guided reading and what new knowledge or skills you have had to learn to make it happen.