Guided reading has been around for over 15 years. One of my graduate classes was on Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading. It worked great in the younger grades for teaching small group. I used it with my 1st graders for a couple of years and started using it in 2nd grade. It was great for my struggling readers but my higher readers didn’t really need phonics anymore. I did some book studies with them but I didn’t really know what else I could do. As the years went on our school started using Guided Reading more and everyone seemed to love it except….
The Older Grades
The older grades complained that it wasn’t helpful for them. Their kids already knew how to read. Why would they be doing phonics with them. They are not going to be doing an alphabet arc with them. Right? There wasn’t a lot of literature for using guided reading with older grades back then.
About 10 years ago one of my favorite author’s, Debbie Diller, came out with Making the Most of Small Groups.
I love her books! She is amazing. I have been to many of her workshops. She has so much knowledge on guided reading.
Guided Reading continues
Finally authors began to write more guided reading books and school districts began to provide professional development. I have been very fortunate that I am in a wonderful school district that has excellent professional development. I have been going to guided reading trainings for over 10 years now and have read many books. Of course with all that knowledge comes lots of different ideas. Trying to filter through all of the ideas is tiresome. I have tried many ideas that did not work too well.
My Struggles
Some ideas worked great in 2nd grade but when I moved to 3rd grade I struggled. Many of those awesome lessons I did with my lower level reading students didn’t work with my fluent readers. My fluent readers didn’t need help with decoding or fix up strategies. Now what? I really needed to focus on comprehension. They could retell the story but when they took assessments they did not always do well. What was going on? They can read well and they could tell me what the passage was about. The problem was with the academic vocabulary. The rigor of my small reading groups was not where it needed to be. I had to get the kids to dig deeper.
I wasn’t the only one having problems. Many teachers at our school and in our district were having the same troubles. Our district started doing more professional development on how to teach guided reading groups with the fluent readers. One of the main points that struck me was I had to get my questioning more rigorous. I did a book study with some other teachers at my school with the book The Next Step in Guided Reading by Jan Richardson.
Guided Reading with Fluent Readers
I finally had that aha moment! This is what I need to be doing. I need to be preparing my students before they start reading. I need to be asking rigorous questions during their reading. There needs to be reader’s response for them to work on after they read the passage. The reader’s response needs to be rigorous enough and cover the standards that we are currently working on and spiral the other standards. Our district has been doing our reading groups like this for several years now. I have had administrators, curriculum specialists, and other teachers come observe me and my students with our guided reading groups. I finally feel like I have a good grasp on my reading groups. My students are doing a better job at comprehending what they are reading. They are also doing well on their assessments and state tests.
I want to share with you what has taken me many years to figure out. Below is a guided reading lesson plan and template for you to use in your small group. It is editable so you can make it your own or tweak it for your classroom. Included is a sample of what one of my reader’s responses looks like. Just click on the picture to download it for free.
I hope you find this helpful! Let me know what you do with your fluent readers in the comment section below.
Thanks,
