Guided reading is an approach to reading instruction that aims to teach readers tools and strategies to read better on their own. Guided reading involves a small group, a shared text, and a teacher.

Guided Reading   Before Reading	During Reading	After Reading
Teacher reminds them what they have been talking about Teacher has students point to pictures Asks questions about pictures to activate more background knowledge and get students in the right mode of thought Teacher and students make prediction All read title out loud All go through book page by page discussing concepts Teacher asks questions about text Teacher asks questions about students’ feelings and experiences Teacher asks a lot of “What do you notice?” Connects pictures to text very deliberately, matching pictures to words Teacher uses text to practice phonemic awareness “Are there some other words that you know?” Students point to follow along Teacher explains how punctuation affects meaning	Students are going to read quietly to themselves Teacher models good reading behavior Teacher instructs students to re-read if they finish for more practice Teacher goes around to each quietly reading student and makes notes about the strategies they are using and their progress, helps them along if they are struggling Teacher is encouraging	Teacher goes over strategies the students used and reinforces phonemic awareness techniques Teacher reinforces comprehension strategies Word work—flashcards about terms students have been discussing, teacher shows pictures and students say the term Phonemic awareness exercise: “what sound does this word begin with?” , students match letters to onset sounds, then to final sounds (reviews silent e)

I really liked this video and appreciated the amount of time the teacher spent on pre-reading activities. I like that she kept the group centered and focused and made her expectations clear, especially by modeling each behavior before the students did it. I think guided reading is something I would want to make a big part of my reading instruction. It was cool to see how it worked in a lower-level setting like in this video. I wonder how it would be run for older students. The only thing I thought could be improved was allowing students more time to arrive to conclusions without prompting, giving students a bit more time to express themselves and to consider things. Question for myself: if this is something I value, how will I make it a priority in a super busy extra-packed day?

Reading A-Z seems like a cool website with a lot of good resources, although their membership is almost one hundred dollars a year.They seem to have a lot of good activities, graphic organizers, etc. and it's great how everything is divided and cross-referenced by the skill or subject you are looking to focus on. I hope someone put some of these things on Pinterest, is all I'm saying.

[I read "Identifying Instructional Moves During Guided Learning" by Frey & Fisher and "Every Child a Reader: What One Teacher Can Do" by Gary Su Pinnell.]

One of my favorite things was Frey & Fisher saying of asking questions to check understanding, "The intention of this question is an important one, as the existence of a punctuation mark alone does not qualify it for this category".

They said the most common type of questions asked was elicitation. While these questions are good to ask and important, certainly the other types of questions allow the student to demonstrate/foster a deeper understanding of material. The least frequently asked question types-- divergent, heuristic, and inventive-- could be used more often. How can teachers avoid falling into the trap of "just the facts" questions, especially when a lot of this has to be done on the fly? Having some go-to patterns of questions might help.

There is a lot of emphasis in both readings on having a set of techniques ready for different situations. I think that makes it somewhat less intimidating, knowing it's a set of habits I can make to become super-teacher. I wonder how some people come upon the theory they decide to stick with. How will I know when I've found my teaching philosophy soulmate?

I think this topic is the one that makes me most anxious. When it comes to actually becoming a teacher, I have no idea how to handle this. It is really good and interesting to read about the best practices, so I understand why multiple assessments are a good idea and, as Rubin says, “empowering”. But I’m still nervous about how to do all these different assessments at regular intervals and synthesize all the data I get into effective lessons for so many students. Rubin called it daunting and I totally agree.

This link has a lot of different ways to assess readers-- some for comprehension, some for read-out-loud abilities.

I enjoy reading about comprehension, and I think I really underestimated the complexity and nuance of the idea before.

One of the ideas that keeps resonating throughout the readings is how important it is to consider the reader when thinking about reading, and how the meaning one constructs is based so much on one’s background knowledge and past experiences. I was thinking about this the other day when I was trying to read something about history on Wikipedia. When I was checking things out about Western history, even though they were things I never knew before, it was easy for me to read and comprehend the text because I could visualize the place, there were some familiar names, and the general context the event took place in (say, during the Reformation or the Renaissance or something). When I tried to read something about Chinese history, however, I was completely lost. I understood the text, and the new words’ relations to each other, but I had no idea what to picture in the Qing versus Ming dynasty, none of the names were familiar to me, etc. That really made me appreciate the importance of pre-reading activities and a reader’s own personal history when thinking about comprehension.

Here are some during reading activities and questions in dice form. Thought it might be cool as a station activity?

For my real-life reading inquiry, I observed a second-grade classroom’s reading and writing lessons. These lessons started at the beginning of the school day and went on until lunch. During this observation I was particularly interested in learning about phonemic awareness in English Language Learner (ELL) students.

There were 18 students in the class, ten of whom did not have English as a first language, but only three who had special lessons (other students had graduated out of the program). The students were seated in groups of mixed achievement levels, so when working in small groups as happened several times in the lesson, they could help each other. The lower-level English speakers occasionally would look to a friend in class who would explain things if there was a misunderstanding-- sometimes in Spanish but sometimes not. This seemed to benefit all the students and create stronger peer relationships while also improving understanding.

There were some things in the classroom I really appreciated, and that seemed to jibe with the best practices illustrated in the readings, and some things that did not. I liked the seating arrangement of the class, in concentric horseshoes, the word wall (which children actually referred to several times during the lesson to check their spelling), and the way the lesson was structured. There was whole-group review and instruction, but then the children broke into small groups to complete activities at different stations around the room. The kids in the class seemed excited, upbeat, and consistently on task. The groups allowed the teacher to help students at one station (a writing response station), while the others worked independently. I loved this idea and would like to implement this stations idea in my classroom, because not only did it break the quite long lesson up into many separate, small tasks that better kept the students attention, but it gave the teacher a chance to work one-on-four with students and provide much more individualized assistance.

Unfortunately, the text they were working with was one of the main things I didn’t like. I doubt it was the teacher’s individual choice, but all the same it was pretty lacking. The basal reader they were using seemed appropriately challenging vocabulary-wise, and included good tasks for them, but the subject matter was dry and not relatable.

Right before lunch, the special teacher for the ELL students arrived. The three students (all girls) with the lowest language mastery joined her at a group of desks. Two of the girls spoke and understood some English.  They seemed to be doing well and their progress was comparable to each other. One of the girls, though, had just arrived in America and spoke absolutely no English. Given that, it was absolutely incredible how she could sight read new words. She picked up on new vowel and consonant patterns so fast. This made me feel not only in awe of her, but made me appreciate more how checking to see “if someone can read” is a way more complicated process than having them read aloud.

The three girls and their ESL instructor used their short lesson to learn a new phoneme— “oo”. They were introduced to the sound, then combined it with single consonants (“boo”, “zoo”, “too”) then in the middle of words (“moon”) and then with consonant blends (“bloom”).  It was really cool to see the girls be able to manipulate sounds so adeptly, and once they had a new pattern to recognize, they did really well with the reading aloud portion. I think this approach makes sense somewhat—in focusing on phonemic awareness for the ESL students rather than vocabulary (especially given the short time they had with the specialized instructor), it gives those students the tools they will need to learn vocabulary independently and incidentally. The only thing that I didn’t love about this portion was that the instructor used linguistic jargon with the kids. For instance, when one mistakenly voiced a “silent e,” she corrected by saying “remember, consonant e!” which was the kind of thing that, in my TESL class, we were strongly encouraged to avoid.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and I’m even more excited to get into a classroom now. 

link
Above is a great list of sites with vocabulary activities.


One concept I thought was interesting in the readings this week was word consciousness. Encouraging a positive disposition towards words so that children will find learning new words intrinsically rewarding is such a huge part of creating a beneficial classroom culture. Especially given that a lot of vocabulary learning is incidental, it is important to give kids an impetus to ask or figure out what something means when they encounter a new word. This was mentioned in a couple of the articles, the idea that in addition to controlled vocabulary lessons, a teacher has to also make students capable of independent learning. It seems kind of obtuse but a lot of the strategies recommended were similar to those for teaching emergent readers to love reading-- in that case, creating a print-rich environment; in this case, creating an environment with a lot of chances to be exposed to new words.

Vocabulary was always one of my strong suits and I think one of the main reasons it came more easily to me is that the adults in my life never used baby words or talked down to me. That's probably my least favorite thing people do when interacting with children. I want to make a conscious effort not to do that, but sometimes it feels difficult because you still want to be understood clearly.

summarizing/synthesizing & determining importance presentation