Guide to Guided Reading

Everyday after lunch we have guided reading time for about 30 minutes.  This is a time for students to practice developing their reading and comprehension skills.

 

The first step is to pick a book.  Each student reads books at their appropriate reading level and have chances to move up when they or I feel they are ready.  Here is our guided reading book corner with all the leveled readers.  

The next step is to label all their "Thinkmarks".  Thinkmarks are like bookmarks but instead of marking their spot in the book, they mark where they were thinking about something important.  The fiction categories for thinkmarks are character, setting, connection, problem, solution, question, new word, spelling pattern, and prediction.  The categories for non-fiction are main idea, setting, connection, interesting facts, question, new word, and spelling pattern.  After titling the thinkmarks they are ready to start reading!

While reading the students simply place a thinkmark on the page where they thought about that category. 

After finishing the book and placing thinkmarks, the students go back and rethink about all their thoughts and write an explanation for each on the appropriate thinkmark. 

After finishing their book and thinkmarks the students meet with me to go over the book and all their thinking.  I keep track of how they do with each category and if everything is ok then they complete an activity worksheet for the book or a comprehension quiz. 

Next, the students take pictures of all their thinkmarks, upload them to the computer, and put them in their reading folder to save their reading thoughts.  

Now they are finished with that book.  They write the information on their reading log and can get stickers for their hard work!

As an extension, the students become the teacher of that book since they are now an expert.  On Fridays they read their books with a 1st grade reading buddy and engage them in questions and discussions while they read.  They ask questions such as, "What's the setting? Do you know anything about a character? What do you think will happen next?" We also sometimes practice this in class during read aloud time where each student gets a chance to read and lead discussion for their book.