Guided Reading : Irene Fountas And Gay Su Pinnell

My early reading experiences reflect the history that Vogt and Shearer (2011) describe in the first chapter of Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World. The basal reading programs of the 1970s and 1980s included “leveled readers, phonics activities, and a great deal of comprehension skill practice, usually found on the pages of the accompanying workbooks. The programs also included highly structured, detailed teacher’s guides, with different lesson plans for each of the three instructional groups” (Vogt & Shearer, 2011, p.13).

After this strategy is Interactive Reading and Guided Reading, where students are reading peer-to-peer, typically a proficient readers is paired with a less proficient reader, and more independent reading

Many students were reading below grade level, and Tyner needed an intensive reading model that could fill in the gaps of each student’s literacy. She began using a basal reading program called Early Steps (Morris, Tyner, & Perney, 2000). Tyner decided to use some of the components of Early Steps to develop her own reading model that would focus on the needs of beginning and struggling readers. The Small-Group Differentiated Reading Model consists of a framework specifically designed for beginning and struggling readers so that they may progress through the appropriate developmental stages and become proficient

(Counselors Affecting Reading Everyday). My plan would involve developing one-on-one counseling sessions where the students would start off by taking a learning style inventory as well as a reading interest inventory. The purpose of the learning style inventory would be to help the students as well as their teachers to understand how each individual child learns and processes information. The reading interest inventory would serve the purpose of helping the students to find a particular type of text that they may enjoy reading. Upon completion of the learning style inventory and reading interest inventory, the students would begin meeting with the counselor to receive one-on-one reading opportunities using books that students self-select based on their interest. This one-on-one meeting will serve to meet the needs of those students who stated that they did not have anyone at home to read with. The students will utilize the school’s Accelerated Reading program to take quizzes on the books they read with the counselor. After earning their first five Accelerated Reading points, a book will be purchased for the student based on their interest. This incentive plan will serve as a means to provide personal books for those students that do not own any as well as attempting to help them to get over the fear or taking reading tests. During these weekly meetings, the counselor will provide a variety of reading text (based on student

Over the years, she has persistently worked with teachers and children in grades K-4 to increase the school’s reading scores. She readily tries new teaching strategies, which led to the implementation of guided reading in our school. Gale assisted in the training and execution of this research-based practice with overall success and approval by our entire faculty. She continues to conduct workshops and when asked, enters a classroom to offer suggestions and training for those teachers in need of extra assistance. Gale is swift, structured, and reliable which makes her someone teachers go to when they have questions, need assistance; and when they are new to the school and require further understanding and

Shared book reading focuses on developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement to enhance student literacy achievement. The teacher selects a text and reads it aloud to a student and/or group of students. The shared book reading program allows the teacher to model reading strategies, increase alphabetic skills, and activate and increase comprehension skills through targeted questions, prompts, and strategies. During the reading the teacher prompts students with strategic prompts and/or questions to engage the students in the text. Moreover, the teacher directs the students to key elements within the pictures, words, and/or text features. The teacher tailors the shared reading experience to meet the needs of the participants (International Reading Association Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Committee, 2012). Hence, educators are able to alter prompts, questions, and strategies to enhance the learning needs of

Guided Reading is a component of a balanced literacy program providing differentiated, small group reading instruction to four to six students with

Most of the other students in her 2nd grade classroom are able to read classroom text and complete work independently. They also read books for enjoyment on their own. The reading time in her classroom consists of a block during which the teacher works with small groups and the children are expected to work quite independently when they are not working directly with the teacher. The class uses a trade book format and this is utilized across the curriculum. Students are provided with short skills building lessons in large and small groups. Most of the time spent during explicit reading instruction is targeted to helping students develop reading fluency.

After completing all the assessments and the parent interview, reading and writing activities were differentiated and conducted during whole group and small group instruction. Bear (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009c) discusses using the RRWWT Framework for guiding instruction for students. During the Read To activity, the Emperor’s Egg (Jenkins,) is read whole group to the students. This is an information text which uses labeled diagrams and captioned pictures throughout to provide additional information about the topic. During the Read To, students are following along in their basal as I read, and I have students discuss the diagrams of the Emperor Penguin. Drawing attention to the diagrams and teaching the students how illustrations and diagrams within text can aid in their understanding of what is being read seems to help the struggling reader. Using the visuals such as the diagrams helps this

Guided reading is something that I found interesting that I would incorporate in a classroom. The first step, as the book states, is the teacher picking materials for their students to read. The teacher needs to make sure that they give each student a copy of the grade appropriate material. When the students are in the beginning stage of reading the teacher introduces new concepts/ vocabulary. This will help the students when they begin reading the material. Once the teacher has gone through the new concepts/vocabulary they let the students read the material. When the students are reading the teacher show keep I eye out for any students struggling with the material or for students that might have a question. The final stage of guided reading

Each teacher at the school because a reading teacher for a 30-minute class period twice a week. We were given informational text and some reading strategies.

She is able to meet more students’ needs than she would be working one-on-one. She also creates reading stations and activities that will support their development as well where there are support activities that are specific to those guided reading groups. She evaluates students each nine weeks through PALS, a phonological awareness assessment, to see their growth along with problem areas that still exist. They also do Fundations as part of their curriculum to help students, but wishes she had more time to use this system with students.

In the primary grades, children should have a well-designed phonics program that promotes knowledge of letters, sounds, words, and phonological units (Dorn, Soffos. 2001. P. 21). The literacy coach should help the classroom teachers prepare for their literacy lessons by providing literary resources needed, modeling to show how certain components of the literacy block should look and making sure the teacher understands how to teach the skills they are working on at the time. For example, if a teacher is unsure how to effectively teach reading groups to beginner kindergarten readers, the literacy coach can model how to do so, provide the teacher with additional help and support, and even let the teacher observe other teachers teach. The literacy coach should also make sure the teachers have everything they need to assess students and that the teachers understand the importance of the assessments and how to get information from them to lead new

[The students are assigned reading groups based on evaluations on reading, fluency, and comprehension three times per year. This level small grouping is flexible and can change as needed over the course of the quarter, semester, or year. There is also a bilingual team, special education team, and reading intervention team that will pull students on for one-on-one instruction. My school uses Fountas & Pinnell reading levels to support their guided reading. Fountas and Pinnell is an assessment given to students in order to identify their instructional reading level. We are able to help group students when we work in small groups during literacy. In small groups, we are able to differentiate reading level and text type for students depending on their reading needs. This also helps us with knowing which students need additional support and where we may need to focus our teaching.]

After the survey was over, Lucy was walked back to the class where she laid down and began to read a book right away.