 |
| Image by Tayeb MEZAHDIA from Pixabay |
Be realistic.
I know that guided reading is a high-impact practice when done well, but honestly, whether it is done well or not depends on how realistic you are about when to start. Too often, I encounter teachers or administrators who want it to begin too early. I’ve been to classrooms where teachers are trying to pull groups the second week of school. Needless to say, it is often chaotic. Students have to be taught the routines for guided reading time, and that generally takes more than a week. A good rule of thumb for 3rd grade and up is to take the first 21-28 days to build and practice routines before starting with consistent guided reading groups. For K-2, that timeframe may be longer. It may be 6-8 weeks before students understand and are fluent with the routines that would allow you to effectively do small groups. In kinder, it may be even longer. You may not be ready to do guided reading until November. Sometimes I will hear people talk about “wasting so much time”. I have to disagree. Spending adequate time teaching routines at the beginning (and often coming back and reteaching throughout the year) saves tremendous amounts of time later.
Keep the schedule consistent.
Even though you may not pull a group for several weeks, you want to keep time carved out in your schedule for it. In the first few weeks, that time will be spent introducing, practicing, and building the routines that will need to be in place when you begin meeting with groups. Students need to learn to look at books and read for extended periods of time, and this is when you start building that stamina. During the pre-guided reading weeks, start by teaching routines and having students practice reading books by themselves while you monitor. The only rule is that they can’t talk to you for a given amount of time. This is getting them into the habit of not interrupting. That amount of time may only be 1 minute at first, but you slowly build it over the course of the weeks. If you plan to do stations during guided reading time, introduced one activity besides independent reading around the second week. Half of the class reads while the other half does the new activity. After a certain amount of time (or the next day), they switch. Slowly introduce another activity, then another until you have 3-4 that everyone is comfortable with doing independently. Then, introduce your management system or how you want students to rotate through activities. This will likely take several weeks for students to master.
TEACH procedures for everything.
I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but if you want things to run smoothly, you don’t leave anything to chance. Make no assumptions about what your students should or shouldn’t already know or be able to do when it comes to managing themselves or working within your classroom management style. You must TEACH them. A mini-lesson about procedures and routines should follow the same format as a mini-lesson on any other topic or content:
- Focus the Learning-Just as with any lesson, you want to tell the students exactly what it is they are going to learn. To do this, you must think about what procedures and routines you want them to follow during guided reading time. How should they ask for help if you are with a group? Where will they get materials? What should they do if they are having a problem with an assignment? Think through EVERYTHING and make a list. This list becomes the topics of your mini-lessons. Pick ONE to focus a lesson on each day.
- Modeling-Once you introduce the procedure or routine, you have to show students what it looks like. I also encourage showing what it does NOT look like. For example, if I were teaching first graders how to leave their workstation to come to the guided reading table when called, I would model hearing my name, putting my materials back where they belong, and walking to the table. I would ask the students what they noticed that I did, and we would make a list. Then I would show them what it does not look like. I might ignore someone calling my name, or I might just get up and leave all of my materials on the floor and dance (spinning and flailing) over to the table. I would ask the class to tell me the difference between what I did the first and second time, and we would talk about why the behaviors in the second role-play are not desirable.
- Guided practice-If you were teaching math, you would show students how to solve a problem, then you work on a problem together. The same approach applies here. After I’ve shown them what the procedure should look like, we practice it together. I might have everyone go to an area of the room and pretend to be working at a station. Then I would call some names, and those students would put their things away and walk to the table. We would stop, reflect, then repeat with another set of names.
- Independent practice-Once we have tried it as a group, I want students to have time to practice this on their own. So, I might have students read quietly at their desks or go to some stations that don’t require much assistance. As they work, I would call a student to come to the table and watch to see if they follow the procedure.
- Evaluation/Reflection-After everyone had a chance to try on their own, we would come back together as a class and talk about how they think they did overall. If this is something we still need to practice, then we will work on it more over the coming days.
Well, I hope this has given you some things to think about as you begin this new year. Guided reading is well worth the time and effort, but it does take time and effort. I wish you all the best for this coming year!
