Gladys McDonald School
Guided Reading
Draft Document
September 2012
*Adapted from a Resource Created by Laurie Gatzke/08
An Example of an Instructional Framework for Guided Reading
Before Reading
• Introduce the text – the cover and publication information.
• A one or two sentence summary statement presents an overview of the book and sets a context for making
connections and predictions and introducing key vocabulary.
• Guide students to make connections (text – self, text – text and text world).
• Set a purpose for reading (I wonder statements, read this part of the text and tell me what connections you make).
• Invite predictions. It is important not to abandon predictions once they are made but to revisit them during and
after reading.
• Preview the book. The picture walk guides the students through the text to make predictions, introduce unfamiliar
concepts and note unique vocabulary/language structures. The degree of support will vary with the needs of the
students.
During Reading
• Individual Reading – Students are reading the text independently, not taking turns reading out loud. They are
reading their own copies of their books at their own pace. The literacy coach is circulating among the students,
listening to them as they read, making notes about strategy use and providing support on the spot. The group may
want to read the first page together.
After Reading
After reading activities help our students become better readers, writers and thinkers.
• Review and reinforce strategies.
• Acknowledge students who were using reading strategies.
• Offer mini lessons on comprehension strategies (first two – three weeks everyone will work on retell)
• Guide a discussion using carefully structured questions that promote higher-level thinking and extends the
experience with the text.
• Written responses are appropriate for students at higher levels. These may be graphic organizers and response
journals.
• Some texts lead themselves to sound extension activities such as role drama, readers theatre or further research.
• Reflect on the process of reading….what went well-not working well, how I help myself understand what I read.
A Sample Guided Reading Lesson
Before Reading
Book Introduction – Activating Prior Knowledge
Purpose:
to provide enough scaffolding for the students to be able to read most of the text on their own with the
strategies and knowledge they already have.
Note that rereading familiar books is a great way to start the guided reading lesson. It
provides students with the opportunity to practice reading a familiar text independently.
1. Introduce the cover information and provide a one or two sentence overview. Invite students to make connections
to their own personal experiences. This allows the reader to activate their prior knowledge. Students could share
ideas with a partner.
Prompts –
Turn to the person beside you and tell them what this reminds you of.
What can you tell about this book by just looking at the cover?
Does the cover of this book remind you of any other book that you have read?
Do you think this book will be fiction or non fiction?
What do you think the story will be about?
What can you predict about the characters in the story?
2. Introduce the author and illustrator and ask students to share other books they have read by the author.
3. Picture Walk or Pic-flic: Preview those pages that present potentially challenging vocabulary or concepts and
model any language patterns that the students will need to know to access the text. Introduce high frequency
words on cards and have students match them to the words in the book. Use a variety of learning modes to
reinforce the words (say them, chant them, sing them, print them in the air). There is no harm done in over learning
these words so that they are read automatically.
4. Set a purpose for reading with an “I wonder” statement and invite students to predict what may happen in the
book.
During Reading
Purpose:
to apply knowledge of reading (reading strategies) to new text
Readers apply their new-found knowledge and strategies to reading actual texts. Each student will read the text
independently. Some may still need to read aloud but emphasize whisper reading so they can begin to rely less on the
actual auditory feedback and or on the voice in their heads.
As the children read, offer support as needed, focusing on meaning, syntax and graphophonic clues.
After Reading
Purpose:
to build reading proficiency and high level thinking.
Retell is a key element of the after reading discussion. It allows students to pay attention to overall meaning, story structure
and the distinction between key ideas and supporting details. It also lays the foundation for inferential comprehension.
Early readers should be expected to retell orally, written retellings may be used with more advanced readers.
Two sample activities that build retell:
Shape – Go Map
A triangle, square and circle represent the beginning, middle and end of a story. The shapes can be color-coded using traffic
light colors – green for beginning, yellow for middle and red for end. (Note that this could be used for a shared reading
activity at the beginning of the next lesson).
The three sides of the triangle are a reminder to identify the characters, setting and plot or problem. The four sides of the
rectangle remind the reader to tell about four key events in the story. The circle at the end reminds the reader that the end
of the story should circle back to the beginning and solve the problem.
Text Reconstruction
The reading coach does a shared writing activity by recording student responses to beginning, middle and end on chart
paper. After the lesson the chart is cut into strips for the lesson the next class.
Students retell the story by putting the sentence strips in order. (Students love this because it is hands-on and is like
putting a puzzle together).
Word Solving Strategies
Early readers often have a tendency to fixate on phonics. We need to help them
understand that the purpose of reading is to make sense of print. The process of figuring
out unknown words is called “word solving” because it involves a variety of strategies
beyond decoding.
Top ten tips for word solving
1. Pictures – check the picture to help you figure out the word.
2. Chunk – see if you recognize any “chunks” or patterns. Is there a little word inside the big word?
3. Cross-check – use word walls and other classroom charts as a reference for solving words in text.
4. Stretch – stretch the sounds in the word
5. Monitor – stop and think about whether the word makes sense, sounds right and matches the print.
6. Skip – skip a hard word and read on; sometimes the rest of the sentence will help you with the word.
7. Reread – go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again.
8. Fix – if you read a word that doesn’t make sense, sound right or look right go back and try to fix it up.
9. Guess – guess what word might make sense in the sentence. See if the sounds in your guess match the letters on
the page.
10. Connect – Does this word remind you of any other word you already know?
Children must be taught to use these strategies. They help them to monitor their comprehension. They help the reader fixup when meaning is lost.
Other Aspects of Guided Reading
A key for learning to read is contextual reading. The following strategies can be
taught/used with any contextual reading material.
Prompts to help with decoding
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Do you know the beginning sound of that word?
Do you recognize any other part of the word?
When you look at the word, is there a chunk that you have seen before? Underline it with
your finger. What is the sound of that chunk?
Did you look at the middle and the end of the word?
Do you know another word with that same ending rime or word family?
Do you see any blends?
Can you find the base word?
Can you locate a prefix or a suffix?
Prompts that help students use clues in the pictures to identify unknown words
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Whom do you see in the picture?
Tell me all of the names that character could be called.
How is the character feeling?
What is happening in the picture?
What details do you see in the background?
Where is the story taking place?
Can you make any predictions from this picture?
Does it look like there may be any problems in the story?
Prompts/questions that increase sight word vocabulary
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Look at the story for words that may be on the word wall.
Can you find a word that doesn’t look and sound the way it is spelled?
Some words are used a lot in our language, but they don’t sound the way they should.
Let’s type ______________ into our brain’s computer to help us remember this word. (Pretend to type
the words on top of your head.)
We have to remember ___________ does not sound the way it should, but every time we
see these letters making that word, it will always be ____________.
Prompts/questions for meaning, visual, and syntax (sentence structure) clues.
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Does ________________ make sense in that sentence?
Try a new word that may make more sense.
Reread it to see if that new word sounds right to you ears.
Does it look like it could be the word you said?
Is it to long? Is it too short? It is just right? Do you remember the story of Goldilocks?
Words should always be just the right length.
When you said _____________, it didn’t make sense to my ears. What other word could
you try?
Does that new word look right and sound right?
Prompts for Prediction
Predicting involves making educated guesses about what will come next in the story. It is
in a way like inferring as readers must apply what they read in the text to what they
already know in order to formulate their opinions. Predicting gives a purpose and focus
to our reading. Predicting helps activate our prior knowledge and connect what we
already know to the words in the text.
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Have students look at the cover and title and ask what they think the book will be about
and why they think that?
Direct students to two or three strategic places in the text of confirm or adjust prediction
(see predict and confirm organizer – resource binder).
Use an anticipation guide (see resource binder) before and after reading.
What do you know about __________(name character) that can help you predict what
he/she might do next.
In stories like this one, what usually happens next?
Prompts for Punctuation/Expression
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What is this punctuation mark called? (Read the sentence emphasizing punctuation)
Does my voice change when I read this punctuation mark?
Can you read this page out loud, changing your voice to match the punctuation?
Note: Readers Theatre and poetry are excellent for building fluency.
Prompts for recall comprehension (fiction) (note – this is related to the reading
strategy determining importance)
Character
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What is a character in the story?
Who are the main characters in the story?
Can you name one or two characters in this story that we are about to read?
What feelings did ____________ (insert name of character) have in the beginning middle and end of the story?
Name one of the characters in the story and tell me one thing about him/her.
Did the character do anything that surprised you?
Have you ever met anyone like _____________ (name of character)? Who was it? How are they alike/different?
Setting
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What does the word “setting” mean?
Where does this story take place?
Where is the setting for this story?
When did this story take place?
Did the story take place over more than one day?
How did the author tell you where the story was happening?
Why do you think the author had the story take place ____________(name place)?
What if this story was set _________ (at the beach, on the playground, in winter, etc)?
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What happened first to ___________(insert name of character) in the story?
How do you feel about what happened to ____________?
Is there a problem in the story?
How do you think the problem will be resolved?
Has ______________(insert event) ever happened to anyone you know?
Let’s talk about the events of the story (the actions taking place).
Have pictures of the story and ask, raise your hand if you can pick out the picture that shows the first thing that
happened in the story. What happened in the story that made you pick this card as the first thing that happened in
the story.
Plot
Solution
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How do you think the problem will be solved?
How did the story end?
What was the solution to the problem?
Can you tell in your own words how the problem was solved?
Is that the way you would have solved the problem?
What is another way the problem might have been solved?
Why do you think the author wrote this?
What does the author want me to know…..what is the big idea?
Main Idea – Key Point – Theme – Message or Teaching
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Why did the author write these book, story etc?
What do you think the author wants us to know?
The author is trying to tell us….
This text was mainly about…
Prompts for making connections
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Does this story (part) remind you of anything that has happened to you or someone you know?
This book makes me think of ____________(tell about another book). What about you?
When I read this it reminds me of ____________.
Prompts for making visual images
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What do you see in your mind as you read this?
What do you smell, taste as you read this?
What picture do you get as you read this?
Prompts for reflecting on what we read?
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How is ________________ the same/different from _______________________ (venn diagrams are great for
this)
What did you learn from reading this?
How has your thinking changed about ______________________?
How did reading go for your today?
What’s working well for you?
What is not working so well?
Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not?
How did you get so good at reading the words?
How did you help yourself understand what you read?