Guided Reading

I really enjoyed learning more about the many processes and techniques that can be used in guided reading. Developing a love of reading in your students depends on two factors, their ability to read the text and their ability to comprehend the story. Students need to be proficient in both these areas to get value and enjoyment out of reading. Guided reading in your classroom helps develop and strengthen both these skills. I particularly enjoyed the case study about the book The Giver. Through guided reading exercises and extensive written work and class discussions students were able to understand a very deep and complicated story. Students analyzed the characters and made a list of the attributes of the Giver as they read the book. They imagined their own perfect community and compared it to the community in the book and to their real world community. They reacted to events in the book and related them to real issues in our world. Through the many activities the teacher constructed to support the reading of The Giver students were completely submerged in the world of the book and the characters. The entire class was able to read, comprehend, react to and critique the text on many different levels. If this book was assigned without the intense level of guidance this teacher provided, the majority of the students would not have gotten much, if any meaning from the story beyond simply being able to recount the events of the plot. Constructing valuable guided reading experiences for your students seems like it can be a challenging and time consuming process. However when you review the results for your students, not only in the improvement of their understanding of that specific text, but in their overall enjoyment and motivation to read, you see that the value far outweighs the effort!