What's Happening at Your Guided Reading Table?

Lately, I've read a lot about reading and the gradual release model. It all began with the book Who's Doing the Work: How to Say Less so Readers Can Say More.

Now I'm reading Preventing Misguided Reading: Next Generation Guided Reading Strategies and it has really gotten me thinking about what happens at the guided reading table.

In the gradual release of responsibility model guided reading comes right after shared reading and right before independent reading - meaning that the direct teaching of reading skills and strategies should occur largely away from the guided reading table, so that this time can be used for actually connecting them while reading text. 

The strategies and reading behaviors that students practice at the guided reading table should not be new to them. They should be those that have already been taught, modeled, and practiced together during read-aloud and shared reading. 

The teacher's primary role in guided reading is not to teach, but to observe in order to determine what they need to revisit with their read aloud (modeled) and shared (interactive) reading lessons.

Remember... guided reading is the point in the release of responsibility right before independence. Scaffolding students toward independence in guided reading is not about the teacher knowing how to hold the reader up, but rather it is about knowing how to let the reader go. 

Guided reading should be viewed as a session rather than a lesson. Well-thought-out text selection facilitates what happens during guided reading, thus making it more like a session than a lesson.

Guided reading sessions should be where students use the bulk of their time practicing what they've already learned. A student's main undertaking should be reading the text mostly by themselves. The teacher may need to occasionally help students focus, problem-solve, connect and/or discover, but these moments should only be "brief detours" in the session. 

There is much more to say and think about in regards to how, we as teachers, turn our guided reading lessons into guided reading sessions. Over the next several weeks we will dig deeper into this idea. 

So... I leave you with this question... What are you doing with students at the guided reading table? Are you using all of the time to teach skills, work on new vocabulary, or introduce the book? or are you giving your students time to practice all of those things you've already modeled for and taught them, so that they are ready for independence?

School's First Day of School

I spent some time in Austin this week visiting my oldest daughter, Madison. She introduced me to the store BookPeople: A Community Bound by Books and I fell in love instantly! Check out their BookKids page here for new and noteworthy kids books, author signing events, and programs by mail. 

BookPeople is full of your-not-so-traditional book displays and handwritten notes and reviews by staff members who've read the book. They also have autographed copies of tons of different books. 

While checking out the kids section I came across this book illustrated by Christian Robinson. 

It is the first day of school and School's a little nervous. The book shows how school feels about the kids and what happens during the course of a day with them. This a great book for teaching perspective. 

If you are not familiar with other books illustrated by Christian Robinson, then I encourage you to check them out. I love his illustrations! You can learn more about him and see all of the books he's illustrated on his webpage The Art of Fun. 

Here are a few of my favorites!

Teacher Decision Making

Teachers make an extraordinary number of decisions each day. There is research that states teachers makes more minute-by-minute decisions than brain surgeons.

The conservative estimate from the data collected has teachers making approximately 130 decisions per hour during a six-hour school day. This data includes only those decisions made within the classroom. This is oftentimes disheartening and intimidating for new teachers. (from the post Keeping New Teachers from Dropping Out)

So... what can we do to help make all of this in-the-moment decision making easier?

Research on teacher decision making (Griffith & Lacina, 2017) tells us that all of these minute-by-minute decisions can be made easier through intentional planning decisions. The more thought teachers put in the planning of reading instruction, the more effortlessly they can predict what the reader will do, the challenges he will face, and where he will apply the strategies he's been taught.

In basic terms, planning decisions act as a dress rehearsal for what might happen during a guided reading lesson.

During the planning process, teachers make decisions related to the following categories:

(1) grouping
(2) text selection
(3) lesson focus and goals
(4) strategies to teach
(5) supports to provide
(5) comprehension needs
(6) next steps

Some decisions are easier to make than others. For example: Which students are similar in their reading development? Which students are reading the same level of text or have the same reading needs? or How many guided reading groups should I form?

Others require more thought and planning. For example: How can I teach for independence? What strategies would best help this group decode words, understand the text, and/or read with more expression and fluency?

There are three big questions you need to answer when making planning decisions for guided reading. Within those overarching questions are a multitude of smaller ones.  

(1) What do the readers in this group do well? Which reading strategies are they using effectively and efficiently and which ones do they need to learn next or practice more?

(2) What makes the text I chose easy for them to read and what will make it challenging for them? 

(3) What strategy focus and goals do I have for these readers? 

A few helpful resources that I've used are:

The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading offers step by step lesson plan templates that help you plan for all of the decisions you need to make before, during, and after the lesson. The book also gives you access to videos, so that you can see each step in action. The best part of this book is that it is not scripted. It is a template and plan that allow for responsive teaching. 

Teacher as Decision Maker: A Framework to Guide Teaching Decisions in Reading (2017). Robbin Griffith and Jan Lacina. The Reading Teacher, 71(4).  

This article provides an easy-to-follow table with specific decisions that you need to think about, plan for, and make when preparing for guided reading instruction.  

The more time you spend planning for and thinking about the decisions you will have to make during a guided reading lesson, the better you will be at all of the in-the-moment decisions that arise while at the table.

"Let's Get a Pup!" Said Kate

I came across this book last week when developing a writing PD and fell in love with it. 

That may be because we just got a new puppy in our house! His name is Bo. 

Our family, like Kate's, has a new puppy and an old dog. We love our Lilly dog too!

Kate and her family go to the Rescue Center looking for a dog. This book is a great mentor text for descriptive language. They found fighters and biters, growlers and snarlers... chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out-at-you dogs... It is also a great mentor text for using ellipses. They occur on several pages of the book and by enlarged text, so they are easy to pick out. They also occur in ways that make it easy for young readers and writers to understand their purpose. 

Kate's family finds a new puppy Dave and an old dog Rosy. They can't take them both, so they leave Rosy behind. Fortunately, they get home and realize they can't leave without Rosy. In the end, all of their puppy wishes come true. This book is a must for dog lovers everywhere. 

I just ordered the sequel!

Click here to learn more about Bob Graham from interview on the Book People blog.