M10: Guided Reading
Guided reading is becoming a bit controversial. It has been described as an instructional approach that involves a teacher working with a small group of students (5-7 students) who demonstrate similar reading behaviors and can read similar levels of texts. The text is easy enough for students to read with a teacher's skillful support; it offers challenges and opportunities for problem solving, but is easy enough for students to read with some fluency. Teachers choose text selections that are on students' instructional reading levels and help students expand their strategies as they are reading together in small groups. The goal of guided reading is to teach students the skills and strategies they need to reach the next reading level. In guided reading, the teacher drives instruction, determining which literacy skill or strategy to emphasize.
Why is this controversial?
Some people think putting children in groups based on reading levels is not research based nor helpful. Some guided reading groups are not flexible (they do not change) and thus children get stuck in low level reading groups.
Many educators use the terms guided reading and small group instruction synonymously; yet each is a separate, distinct instructional model.
Like guided reading, small group instruction is a teacher-driven model. Again, the teacher is working with a small group of three to five children who have similar instructional needs. However, the basis for grouping children is not just limited to instructional level. Teachers form small groups based on a skill or strategy which the students need to become more proficient readers. For example, a group may be formed to work on the literacy skills of summarizing or making inferences. Likewise, a small group might be formed to work on the skill of fluency or decoding. In both cases, each member of the small group needs to learn the targeted skill or strategy, but each student might be reading at a different instructional level. Therefore, a key difference between guided reading and small group instruction is that in small group instruction, formation of groups is not limited to the students’ instructional reading level. Instead, groups can also be formed based on the skill or strategy students need to learn.