How To Teach Guided Reading

My site is primarily for management strategies, so this page will focus on the particulars of how to run guided reading groups.  If you are unclear about what the basic components of language arts instruction are (and it's okay if you are!), or need resources for incorporating them into your classroom, start here on my literacy page. 

Here are some other resources for learning how to teach reading groups:

The school district of Springfield, Illinois, provides excellent, easy-to-read information about teaching and managing guided reading.  

Mandy Gregory has tried out a lot of different guided reading management strategies and reflects honestly on what she believes is best practice and workable in her classroom.  Click here to view her 4th grade guided reading program.

Good Materials To Have

Your school system may not provide many materials for you to teach guided reading with: generally, you'll get 'little books', which are multiple copies of leveled readers to use in small groups.  You may not even have books for every child in the group.  Fortunately, you don't need to have a lot of materials for GR, and you can make the most of what you have. 

Some basic supplies that are helpful:

-individual white-boards for each child (buy a piece of showerboard from a home improvement store and have them cut it into 12x12 squares: this costs less than $10 for a class set of boards that last for years)

-novels or little books appropriate for your students' reading levels

-letter tiles or paper photocopies of letters for making words activities

Here are some more ideas for materials you can begin collecting- but are NOT neccesary.  The photo above is from my 2003 classroom.  I stored all of my materials for teaching GR here. 

-All of those black and white books are Watch-Me-Reads, an old reading series we no longer used but I utilized for small groups occasionally.  Kids could take them home and read them to their families.  You will probably find materials from old series lying around your own school- these can be a great resource, because you can use them however you choose.

-The blue file organizer held phonics-based file folder games.  Sometimes I put the organizer out on the reading table and let the kids pick a file folder game to do for a warm-up while I got the rest of the class settled.

-The yogurt cups held laminated pieces of yellow tissue paper, cut into various small sizes.  Students used them to 'highlight' words they didn't know, or that fit a particular spelling pattern, or that used a specific vowel sound, etc.

-The wooden box held letter tiles used for making words.  Buying tiles is too expensive for me, so I found some old math manipulatives in a school closet and wrote a letter or letter blend on each square.  Students got a bag with two of each vowel, and then either specific consonants if I wanted them to anagram a particular word, or they could pick 5 randomly from the bag and make as many words as they possible.  (That is a center activity, also, called 'Stir the Stew').  The letter tile activities make an excellent warm-up.

-The bottom shelf has two bins of "Speedy Readies"- very short books, easy books, poetry, magazines, and other reading materials that students can get through quickly.  If students finished a task before the rest of their group, they could pick a Speedy Ready.  They should be ready to put it away at any time and re-join the group because all the books are quick reads, and they don't have to get up and return them to the classroom library.

-Next to the Speedy Readies are laminated activity sheets I made to go with the Watch-Me-Reads.  I often pulled them for subsitutes to use during reading lessons, or when I was not feeling well or had too much to do to teach three reading groups.  Kids read the story and followed the self-explanatory directions on the papers.  They usually worked alone but sometimes worked in pairs or with their small  groups. 

Organizing Reading Group Materials and Teaching Area

Above is another photo from my 2003 classroom. While I stored all of my GR materials on the shelves, I kept a small rolling cart for the reading group supplies that I accessed daily.  I just wheeled the cart over to wherever I needed it (the GR table, the rug area, or if I moved to a small group of students instead of having them move to me). On top in the purple box is the reading series I used on occasion with my AGL (Above-Grade-Level) kids.  My binder with test scores, running records, small group notes, etc. is right behind them.  I also kept markers, pens, pencils, and dry erase markers inside the purple box.  (The box was a black-lightbulb box from Wal-Mart at Halloween, I think: ask stores to let you have their empty boxes, and usually they're happy to get rid of them!).  The top drawer of the cart held stuff for my BGL kids, middle for OGL, and bottom for AGL.   That means when it was time to teach a particular group, I just opened the drawer and had the current kid's readers, teacher's edition, and props right at my fingertips.  

Here is the small group reading area of a first grade teacher in one of my former  schools.  She kept all of her resources on the shelves behind the table and also uses a small rolling cart.  Thanks, Mrs. Hanson!

This is another small group reading area from Mrs. Paige's first grade class.  She uses plastic crates and a bookshelf to keep her materials.  I like the small white board easel.

How did first grade get those cool horseshoe tables, anyway?  We don't have them in third!  :-)  Well, this is my classroom.  I often do my small groups on the carpet.  I sit in the same place I was at when I took the picture, in either a rocker or a regular chair.  The kids can sprawl out on the carpet with large clipboards (which they love) or sit at the round table (which is not as far away as it appears)- wherever they are comfortable.

Here's my language arts area in my classroom during SY 2005-2006. (it's directly behind where I was standing to take the picture of the reading group area).  I took the picture at the end of the year so a lot of stuff is already put away, but you get the idea.  The green crate has standardized test practice packets in it.  The green books are language arts (grammar) books that I use a few times a year (I try to teach grammar in context rather than through boring textbooks like we had when we were in school!).  The rest of the shelves held dictionaries, class sets of books (we were reading 'Ramona Forever' so those books were out), small group guided reading books, letter manips, sticky notes, etc.  To the far right, you can see some of my book bins, which were in the reading area.  I kept language arts and reading (and writing) in seperate areas because they each hadseperate workjobs, but now I'm using just one giant Literacy Area to store all of my supplies.

Introducing Reading Group Routines and Center Procedures

It's extremely important to spend plenty of time modeling and reinforcing your expectations for guided reading.  Here are some tips for introducing your procedures.

How To Group Students        

Homogenous grouping is traditional for GR, and there is much research to prove it's effectiveness, especially for younger students.  However, the older your students, the more fluent they are, presumably, and it becomes less neccesary to group them by ability- see research by Regie Routman.  I prefer flexible grouping with my third graders because a) they don't feel 'labeled' or limited, and b) they practice just the skills they need.  I give mini-benchmark tests for specific skills (cause/effect, fact/opinion, etc.) on a regular basis: kids read a short passage and answer 5 multiple choice questions.  I grade them quickly, and then pull the kids who need to review it for a small group. 

You can have homogenous groups and also pull groups flexibly, especially if you don't schedule GR into your schedule rotation (see Workstations below).

How Many Reading Groups Should You Have?        

If you're doing flexible grouping (see above), this is a non-issue.  If you're doing homogenous grouping, 3 is the traditional number: below-, on-, and above-grade-level.  Once students have become fluent readers (intermediate elementary), the tasks completed in GR groups will become more similar and ability grouping is less crucial (as opposed to 1st grade, for example, when some kids don't know letters and others are reading chapter books: you may need more reading groups at that grade level).

If your groups are too large, or the range of abilities is too broad, you may need to have 4 groups.   I did this one year because my on-grade-level group was always difficult to teach- I had some kids who were barely out of the below-grade-level group and some who were almost ready for the above-grade-level group but not quite.

You may also have a situation like I did one year, in which the below-grade-level group had to be split up.  Most of the group was only a year or less behind, but I had two kids who were on a first grade level and had already been retained: they needed extra help that the rest of the group was too advanced for.  There are some teachers who have as many 7 groups, but this seems really unmanageable to me. 

Determining A Rotation System
 

There are a lot of different things you can have the rest of the class doing while you teach reading groups: centers, workjobs, partner reading, partner work, making words, independent work, silent reading, etc.  In the past, I have called the whole thing our Literacy Workshop, since it comprised a variety of elements.  Look at what your school system requires (most have mandates about this), and then fine-tune the plan until it works for you.  And- don't be afraid to change things mid-year or more than once throughout the year! 

Workstations: the easiest system I've found that is based on best practices: The most effective rotation system, in my experience, is described on the Centers page.  In a nutshell: I reflected on best practices from workshops I've taken and research I read (mostly Regie Routman and Debbie Miller), and I stopped scheduling GR as one of the rotations.  Students either read independently or complete centers in workstations during the whole GR time, and I call kids over when I am ready for them.  There are seperate center groups and reading groups, and the schedule is much more flexible.  In addition to the info on the Centers page, there is also more about this on the 2nd and 3rd tips in the next section, below.

The traditional rotation system:  You may want to use (or be mandated to use) the traditional rotation system.  Here are some ideas based on things I've done that in the past.  From the traditional standpoint, the number of rotations you need will depend on how many reading groups you have. 

I have very set procedures and routines in my classroom, as you can tell!  But I'm very laid back with the format of reading groups. I dislike having to stop a lesson after 15 minutes.  One year I saw each group for 30 minutes and only met with 2 groups a day (BGL first daily and OGL and AGL taking turns for the second slot, with the OGL kids seeing me more frequently than the AGL kids).  This worked really well for that class.

Here's an example of a rotation if you have 4 reading groups (which is harder to arrange than if you have 3):

	1st rotation	2nd rotation	3rd rotation	4th rotation
BGL	Small Group	Indep. Work	WorkJobs	D.E.A.R.
Low OGL	Indep. Work	WorkJobs	D.E.A.R.	Small Group
High OGL	WorkJobs	D.E.A.R.	Small Group	Indep. Work
AGL	D.E.A.R.	Small Group	Indep Work	WorkJobs

You can do 3 rotations even if you have 4 groups when you’re short on time:

	1st rotation	2nd rotation	3rd rotation
BGL	WorkJobs	Small Group	Indep. Work
Low OGL	Small Group	Indep. Work	WorkJobs
High OGL	Indep. Work	Workjobs	Small group
AGL	Indep. Work	Workjobs	Small group

By the way, the order of the rotations isn’t random.  My BGL kids often had a hard time sitting still and concentrating for long periods of time, so right after whole-class instruction, I would send them directly to WorkJobs.  I did try to schedule my struggling readers in the first and second rotation when I still had energy and I knew we won’t run out of time (my last group often got shortchanged, time-wise). 

Transitioning Between Each Reading Group Rotation

GENERAL TIPS:

- Try having the kids stay in one place so that YOU move through the rotations. This works great in small spaces.  Here was my plan when I taught second grade: there were four groups of students, with about six in each group.  At one set of desks, we did small group guided reading instruction.  Another set of desks had kids doing independent work.  The other two sets of desks had kids doing centers and reading for D.E.A.R. time, respectively.   The kids moved from one group of desks to the next at the appropriate time.  I loved the way this worked, with me coming to the reading group rather than having the reading group come to me (although that method is also very effective, if your kids can move around the room responsibly).

WORKSTATION STRATEGY TIPS:

- However, don’t expect transitions between groups to be quick for the first two weeks.  I usually begin reading groups during the third week of school, and the first week that groups meet, I don’t teach them, I just monitor the kids in their various places (the ones at the table for small group read silently or complete an independent task).  I walk around the room and whisper reinforcements for on-task behavior, and sit at the table with the small group so the rest of the class gets used to seeing me in that role.  Once I am sure they know the rotation order, how to take care of and clean up the centers, and how to work independently on an assignment, I expect the transitions to be very quick.

- If someone in centers or independent work is off-task, attempt to make eye contact first.  A stern look should get them back on track, and often misbehaving children are looking at the teacher, anyway, because they know they’re doing something wrong.  If you can’t get eye contact, focus on the small group again for another thirty seconds or minute.  If you look back up and the child is still misbehaving and won’t look at you, you have a choice.  You can not say anything and then after the group ends,  give a consequence that is consistent with your behavior management system (a check mark or frown face or flip the child's card to yellow, etc.).  Or you could give your group a brief task (“Tell you partner about…”) and get up to whisper to the child.  Your final choice is to call across the room to the misbehaving child.  This last way is quite disruptive to the whole class, but can be very effective especially in the beginning of the year because it reinforces your expectations and lets the kids know you ARE watching them.

- If students cannot work independently, sit them either away everyone else or near your small group table.  Some children will be on their best behavior if they're seated near you, but others have such limited self-control that their actions would only disrupt your small group. Disruptive students must not be seated in a place where they can distract others, and if certain children continually pose this problem, explain the situation to them as your reason for having them sit alone.  Consistent appropriate behavior should result in them being allowed to sit with the class again on a trial basis. You can also tell off-task students that if they don't do their independent work, they don't go to centers or on the computer- it’s a package deal.  

- If students continually show that they cannot be responsible in centers, they should lose the privilege to use them.  Only you can determine what 'continually' means: personally, if I have to speak to a child more than once in a day about playing around, they don’t go to centers the following day.  While the others do centers, that child can continue independent work or read silently instead.   Again, this is about the seriousness of disrupting small group learning time.  See the introducing center routines and GR procedures page for more.

Assessing Guided Reading Work

Some school systems don't require reading group work to be assessed.  I support this philosophy because it assumes that teachers are capable of informally assessing students' progress over time using their own judgement. For those who must keep records for your reading groups, I encourage you to use simple forms whenever possible. If your district doesn't mandate some complex system, just write the skill at the top of a checklist and use a basic scale to indicate if kids are mastering what you teach (maybe S for secure, P for progressing, and E for emerging).  I've done this in the past when it wasn't required just as documentation of what kids are learning during reading groups.  You can use any of the forms I made up here if you want.  This one is a more structured evaluation I use to show if kids are meeting benchmark standards (SSS is the state standards- just put in your own title).   This anecdote form is less structured and has space for more notes. For information about assessing center/ workstation assignments, see the Center Management page.

See the Centers page for more information about making and running centers/ workstations.

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