Opitz and Ford (2001) have identified four common guided reading experiences. Each of these experiences are designed for specific purposes. Each of the experiences enable students to develop specific reading skills and strategies.

Demonstration
A demonstration guided reading experience is designed by the teacher to show students how to be better readers. The specific strategy, literary element, or learning behavior is modeled by the teacher for students so that they can better understand how to use it in more independent contexts. An example of a demonstration guided reading experience might be showing students how to make connections to what they are reading. For instance, teachers could use a think-aloud to demonstrate to small groups of students how to use a particular graphic organizer.

Intervention
An intervention guided reading experience is designed to address a specific need that has become evident from watching and listening to students as they read and write. Students with similar needs are grouped together to make efficient use of instructional time. To assist the students to move from where they are to where they need to be the teacher focuses less on modeling and more on scaffolding instruction. An example of an intervention guided reading experience is a teacher who after observing his/her students reading notices that there are several students who need to learn how to read in phrases. These students are brought together to teach them how to do this. The teacher listens carefully as the students chorally read a piece of text, waiting for that teachable moment- the point at which word-by-word reading could be easily phrased. As students encounter dialogue, the teacher asks the students to stop and listen to the way in which the students are reading the text (word by word). The teacher then asks the students if this is the way people normally talk. The teacher asks the students how someone would say the same words. The teacher then makes the connection of how important it is to read the way people would talk. The teacher then guides the students to a portion of text where they can practice reading dialogue. The teacher then checks the students individually on other parts of the text to see if they can apply what they have been taught.

Shared Response
A shared response guided reading experience is designed to enable children, regardless of reading level, to share what they are reading with others. The purpose of the shared response guided reading experiences is for students to learn from one another through meaningful, focused discussion. This form of guided reading is used when teachers want to engage in discussion about a common text or different but related texts that the students have been reading. An example of this type of guided reading experience is a teacher whose students have been reading different biographies. The teacher wants to provide students time to talk about their biographies with one another. In particular, the teacher wants students to discuss how writers of biographies grab the attention of the reader. Each student is asked to prepare three examples from their text using sticky notes to share in the discussion. The teacher uses shared response guided reading to accomplish this.

Combination
Teachers can use a combination of guided reading experiences in which any of the above three are used. How to help students understand a given aspect of reading is what guides the combination of experiences. A teacher observes that her students need to know how to lead group discussions. The teacher selects a group of students to role play a group discussion. The students demonstrate both good and bad examples. The teacher collaborates with the students to build a chart detailing what good discussions look and sound like. Then when students move to their independent discussions in small groups, the teacher drops in on each group to monitor their behaviors intervening with reminders based on the class-made chart.

There is no right way to group students for guided reading instruction. How you group students will depend on your purpose. It is important to keep in mind that the end goal for any grouping decision is providing access to quality instruction for all students.

Decisions about how to group students for guided reading instruction begins with understanding what students know and what they need to know. By observing students in different contexts-independent reading, reading conferences, and whole group instruction- and in a variety of content areas will provide logical starting points for guiding reading instruction. There are many ways of grouping students for effective instruction. Teachers should consider several options for grouping and think in terms of using a variety of grouping arrangements to achieve your purpose.

Ability grouping is when students are grouped according to similar levels of achievement based on results of informal and formal assessment measures. This is called homogenous grouping. Mixed ability grouping is when the results of informal or formal measures are used to group students of differing levels of achievement. This is sometimes called heterogeneous grouping. Flexible grouping is when students work in a variety of differently mixed groups that are drawn together for a specific purpose. Sometimes the reading behaviors of these students are similar and sometimes they are diverse. There are different guided reading experiences and each call for different grouping options.

Teachers must not only consider the type of grouping but also how students will be assigned to guided reading groups. At times students may be randomly assigned to a group. This may be for management and forming groups of equal size. For example, students may choose a title from a bag of books and group themselves by this title. Students may be assigned to groups based on interest. Students may group themselves to learn more about a particular author or subject. This type of grouping motivation is the driving force for learning. Finally, students may be grouped according to a specific strength or instructional need. This is done primarily to teach that skill or strategy to those who need to learn it.

Groups should stay together until they have accomplished the purpose for which it was formed. Once a group's purpose has been achieved it should be dissolved. Groups should not last all year. When you sense that a group has become static, consider how to deliberately shake them up to make them more dynamic. Groupings can and often do change within a lesson. As a teacher you may also want to establish different guided reading experiences on different days. For example, you may want to provide intervention experiences two days each week. On these days, students are assigned to groups according to the skill or strategy they need to learn. On other days, you may want to provide shared response guided reading experiences, so students are assigned to groups randomly or by interest.

When grouping students for instruction, teachers need to think about the percentage of time that students are engaged in productive literacy activities and the need for flexibility in order to provide quality instruction for all students.

What do I do with the rest of my students during guided reading instruction?

Learning centers are probably the most used classroom structure used to engage learners when they are not working with the teacher in small-group guided reading lessons. Learning centers are small areas within the classroom where students work independently to explore literacy activities. To ensure success, you should consider the following before developing learning centers in your classroom: the audience and their motivation, how to foster independence, and the overall structure.

Decisions about learning centers need to be grounded in what you know about the students as readers, writers, and learners. You must know what students can do by themselves. According to Brophy (as cited in Opitz and Ford, 2001), there are two keys to motivation (a) perception of the possibility of success and (b) perception that the outcome will be valued. For many students, they have experienced repeated failure and quickly withdraw from an activity they perceive as not possible. One way to set students up for success is to make sure that they fully understand the activity as a result of discussing, modeling, and practicing it in large-and small-group instructional settings. By the time an activity is placed in the center, students can't help but be successful.

Teachers must consider how well students function as independent learners. Most often, students must be taught how to be independent so taking the time to teach them is well worth the effort. Think about the behaviors and skills your students will need to be successful, then teach them to your students. Opitz and Ford (2001) suggest a four-part minilesson to use when teaching the procedural aspects of independent work. The teacher begins with the focus or the purpose of the lesson. An explanation is provided and relates to the purpose. Students then have an opportunity to role-play for guided practice. Finally, students directly apply what they have learned as they complete the center activities for the day.

Teachers must determine the overall structure of the learning center. Learning centers need to facilitate independent use by the student. An activity that has the potential to interrupt small-group instruction because of its complexity may be more of a deterrent than a learning tool. Learning centers must operate with minimal transition time and management concerns. Learning centers that consume more time, energy, and effort than the instruction and activities need to be rethought. Learning centers need to encourage equitable use between activities and among learners. Students need to be encouraged to participate in all activities. If the organization precludes some students from having access to the same centers as other students, arrangements need to be made to equalize access. Learning centers need to include simple built-in accountability systems. Building a simple accountability measure will serve as a motivator for students to stay productively engaged. Learning centers need to allow for efficient use of teacher preparation time. Teachers have limited time to prepare learning centers so structured activities that can be changed or altered easily once they've been established as part of the center-based instruction work best. Learning centers need to blend in with class routines. Routines provide a predictable way for students to engage in learning and for teachers to plan instruction. Once they have been established and practiced, routines can be followed without teacher guidance.

Below are examples of literacy centers:

• Listening centers
• Reader's Theater
• Pocket chart activities
• Poems and story packs
• Working with Words
• Responding through art
• Writing
• Reading
• Computer workstations
• Content area centers
• Games
• Newspaper and magazine centers

Independent activity can be structured without relying exclusively on learning centers. Alternative independent projects guide students in self-directed, meaningful inquiry projects. Work folders can guide independent work, but rather than containing several worksheets or workbook pages to accomplish, this folder contains a variety of reading and writing tasks.

References

Fountas, I.C., & Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Opitz, M.F., & Ford, M.P. (2001). Reaching readers: Flexible and innovation strategies for guided reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Resources

K-6 Balanced Literacy Pack
This website answers the question, "What is guided reading?" It also provides useful information on grouping students and classroom activities.
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/Balanced_Literacy/Reading/guided_reading.htm

Instructional Strategies Online
This website offers an explanation of guided reading, its purpose, how to set up guided reading in your classroom, and how to use assessment to group students.
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/guided/guided.html

Balanced Literacy- Guided Reading
This website offers information on what guided reading is and is not, running records, text selection, and lesson formats.
http://www.newton.k12.ks.us/Dist/curr/bp/lit/guided_reading.htm

Teaching Tips: Guided Reading
This website provides information on guided reading in a question-answer format.
http://www.cedu.niu.edu/pride/web13.htm

Guidelines for Guided Reading
This PDF document provides a good review of guided reading. Information includes guidelines, strategies, what to expect, and a comparison of grouping (dynamic vs traditional). http://www.eicsd.k12.ny.us/literacy/articles/guidelines.pdf#search='using%20Guided%20Reading

Guided Reading in Grades 3-6
This online article by Linda Hoyt discusses guided reading as a way to empower learners with the tools they need for lifelong success in reading.
http://www.lindahoyt.com/Library/articles/guided%20reading%20grades%203_6.htm

Guided Reading Critical Questions
These questions, by Linda Hoyt, allow teachers to assess their guided reading instruction.
http://www.lindahoyt.com/Library/articles/Guided%20Reading%20Critical%20Questions.htm

Synthesis of Understandings and Practices in Guided Reading
The author of this site provides answers to specific guided reading questions, such as: what is guided reading, what are the underpinnings of the method, what are the areas of agreement, and what are the different guided reading perspectives?
http://www.bridgew.edu/Library/CAGS_Projects/JLINEHAN/web%20page/synthesis_of_guided_reading.htm

Quick Tips for Getting Started with Nonfiction Guided Reading
Cheryle Ferlita offers specific guidelines for using nonfiction during guided reading. Ferlita discusses activities to do and instruction to consider during pre-reading, during reading, and after reading components of guided reading. The author also suggests ways to find good nonfiction materials and the overall time that should be spent on each activity. http://www.lindahoyt.com/Library/articles/quick%20tips%20for%20getting%20started%20with%20nonfiction.htm

Leveled Reading Frequently Used Terms
This four-page PDF offers a glossary of terms that can be used for teachers interested in leveled readers and guided reading.
http://mylibrary.pearsonlearning.com/helpfile_levelreading.pdf

Books for Students

Fiction

Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
From the publisher:

When pale strangers enter fifteen-year-old Amari's village, her entire tribe welcomes them; for in her remote part of Africa, visitors are always a cause for celebration. But these strangers are not here to celebrate. They are here to capture the strongest, healthiest villagers and to murder the rest. They are slave traders. And in the time it takes a gun to fire, Amari's life as she's known it is destroyed, along with her family and village.

Beaten, branded, and dragged onto a slave ship, Amari is forced to witness horrors worse than any nightmare and endure humiliations she had never thought possible -- including being sold to a plantation owner in the Carolinas who gives her to his sixteen-year-old son, Clay, as his birthday present.

Now, survival and escape are all Amari dreams about. As she struggles to hold on to her memories in the face of backbreaking plantation work and daily degradation at the hands of Clay, she finds friendship in unexpected places. Polly, an outspoken indentured white girl, proves not to be as hateful as she'd first seemed upon Amari's arrival, and the plantation owner's wife, despite her trappings of luxury and demons of her own, is kind to Amari. But these small comforts can't relieve Amari's feelings of hopelessness and despair, and when an opportunity to escape presents itself, Amari and Polly decide to work together to find the thing they both want most...freedom.

The Boy in the Basement by Susan Shaw
From the publisher:

For Charlie, the cold, dark basement is home. Father has kept him locked in there as punishment. Charlie doesn't intend to leave, but when he is accidentally thrust outside, he awakens to the alien surroundings of a world to which he's never before been exposed. Though haunted by hallucinations, fear of the basement, and his father's rage, Charlie must find a way to survive in his new world. He has escaped his past, but his journey has just begun



Four Steps to Death by John Wilson
From the publisher:

It is 1942. The Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest in history, is underway. Three participants- two fighters and a boy- are caught in its horrors. Their story is told over seven days of fierce and deadly street-by-street fighting. Vasily is a patriotic Russian soldier determined to rid his country of the hated Nazi invaders- if he can stay alive long enough. Conrad is a German tank officer, part of the seemingly unstoppable force sweeping eastward over the steppe, expecting a quick victory over Stalin's ill-trained and badly equipped army. Between them is eight-year-old Sergei, whose home is the maze of rubble that used to be the city of Stalingrad. None of them can know that their fates will be intertwined as the cataclysm engulfs them.


Red Ridin' in the Hood by Patricia Marcantoni & Renato Alarcao (Illustrator)
From the publisher:

Eleven classic tales are retold with an injection of Latino culture, providing a twist on the traditional forms while sustaining a freshness all their own. The title story, "Red Ridin' in the Hood," moves the setting to the barrio, where Red decides to brave dangerous Forest Street in order to reach her abuelita and encounters the menacing wolf in a thumping Chevy lowrider. Some stories are set in the Mexican countryside; in "Belleza y La Bestia," the beautiful heroine is a defender of the Revolution and teaches the beast about the righteousness of the freedom fighters. "El Dia de los Muertos," a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, takes place in the time of the Aztecs and casts Orpheus as the feather-maker Nochehuatl.

Non-Fiction

Isaac Newton: Giants of Science 2 by Kathleen Krull & Boris Kulikov (Illustrator)
From the publisher:

What was Isaac Newton like? Secretive, vindictive, withdrawn, obsessive, and, oh, yes, brilliant. His imagination was so large that, just "by thinking on it," he invented calculus and figured out the scientific explanation of gravity.Yet Newton was so small-minded that he set out to destroy other scientists who dared question his findings. Here is a compelling portrait of Newton, contradictions and all, that places him against the backdrop of 17th-century England, a time of plague, the Great Fire of London, and two revolutions.


Transformed: How Everyday Things are Made by Bill Slavin
From the publisher:

CDs start out as sand. Blackboard chalk comes from tiny sea creatures. The objects all around us-every single product in the world-is made from elements found in nature. Discover how nature is transformed into more than 60 things we eat, drink, play with, wear or use every day. Technology changes constantly, but the stages raw materials go through to become finished objects remain much the same. On every page of this book, these processes are described and illustrated step by step. The text and artwork combine playfulness with encyclopedic attention to detail. This unique and fascinating book will inform and entertain every step of the way. Includes a glossary, index and further resources to help children, parents and teachers.


Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley by Sally Walker
From the publisher:

On February 17, 1864, the H.L. Hunley made history as the first submarine to sink a ship in battle. Soldiers on the shore waited patiently after seeing the submarine's return signal. But after several days, the ship had failed to return. What had gone wrong? In 1995, after over 130 years of searching, the H.L. Hunley was finally found buried off the coast of South Carolina. Follow author Sally M. Walker on a fascinating journey through the workings of the famous submarine, its voyages, and the difficult obstacles that were overcome to recover, excavate and conserve the ship.

Certificates for Fall 2005 FOR-PD Graduates

Welcome to FOR-PD Spring Participants

FOR-PD Help Desk

1. When entering the chat, don't say hello to each other. Most chat systems inform everyone in the chat room that someone has entered the room. This will cut down on chat-message run-on.
   
2. Unless you have the floor, don't say anything; rather, ask to be recognized by the person who does have the floor by posting an !. This is unobtrusive and will let everyone know that you have a statement or question to make.
   
3. When you are done talking, end your last sentence with a # symbol.
   
4. If you specifically want to ask a question of someone or address them, type their name followed by a semicolon and then the message.