Guided Reading
Guided reading is an instructional approach commonly utilized in elementary education to enhance students' reading proficiency through tailored support. Typically conducted in small groups of three to six students, this method involves selecting reading materials that align with the specific skill levels of the group. A guided reading session usually lasts around twenty minutes, during which the teacher introduces reading strategies, monitors student progress, provides individualized guidance, and facilitates discussions about the text after reading.
Originating in New Zealand in the 1960s, guided reading integrates the educational theory known as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), developed by psychologist Lev Vygotsky. This concept emphasizes the importance of providing students with tasks that are challenging yet achievable with appropriate support, fostering significant learning gains. Unlike traditional tracking methods, guided reading employs flexible grouping, allowing students to collaborate and support one another, promoting a sense of community among readers.
The interactive nature of guided reading encourages students to engage with various strategies, such as self-monitoring and prediction, ultimately aiming to cultivate independent readers who can effectively apply these techniques in their future reading endeavors. This approach is especially beneficial for students facing reading difficulties, making it a valuable tool in contemporary education.
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Guided Reading
Guided reading is a method often used in elementary school classrooms to help students become more proficient readers through supported practice. Guided reading is usually done in small groups of three to six students, with reading materials selected to match the skill level of a particular group. In a guided reading session, which typically lasts about twenty minutes, the teacher introduces one or more strategies to be practiced during the session, monitors the students as they read, provides individualized guidance and assistance to each student as appropriate, and questions the students or leads a discussion of the text after the students have finished reading it.
Overview
Matching reading materials to the proficiency of students through the use of graded readers has been common practice in education for decades, if not centuries. Tracking students, i.e. placing them in homogenous groups according to their proficiency levels, has also been practiced since the nineteenth century or longer. However, the more flexible and dynamic strategy of guided reading is more recent; it was developed in New Zealand in the 1960s and has since become popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
Guided reading draws on the theory of the Zone of proximal development (ZPD) created by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. ZPD represents a middle ground between work (e.g., reading) that is so difficult a learner cannot do it, and work that he or she can do unaided (autonomously). A student is operating in the ZPD when he or she can do the work with appropriate adult guidance and assistance. Vygotsky believed that working in the ZPD provided the greatest gains for students; thus, schools should concentrate on providing them with experiences within this level of difficulty.
Guided reading allows a teacher to individualize instruction to accommodate students at different levels of reading proficiency and allows students to work on texts that challenge them. The groups used in guided reading instruction are typically flexible and change frequently, so that students are not always in the same group. This is a key distinction from tracked groups that may remain constant for the entire school year. In addition, students in guided reading may be encouraged to assist each other and to consider themselves part of a larger community of readers.
The process of guided reading is interactive, as the teacher may prompt the student to apply strategies while he or she is reading. Examples of guided reading strategies include self-monitoring (self-checking to see if you are reading accurately), cross-checking (relating two sources of information), self-correcting (noticing and correcting your errors), searching (looking for information to solve a problem), prediction (anticipating what will come next in the reading), and confirming (checking predictions and inferences for consistency with new information). The ultimate goal of guided reading is to help students become independent readers, with an arsenal of effective techniques that they can apply as needed when they are working alone. According to experts, guided reading is an effective educational strategy and is particularly useful in assisting students who have difficulty with reading.
Bibliography
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