Types of Reading Instruction

Guided Reading:

According to Fountas and Pinnell, guided reading is an instructional setting that enables you (the teacher) to work with a small group of students to help them learn effective strategies for processing text with understanding. The purpose of guided reading is to meet the varying instructional needs of all the students in your class, enabling them to greatly expand their reading powers (p.189 - 191).

Guided reading is a teaching approach that is designed to help individual students learn how to process a variety of increasingly challenging texts with understanding and fluency. Guided reading occurs in a small-group setting because the small group allows for interactions among readers that benefit them all. The teacher selects and introduces texts to readers, sometimes supports them while reading the text, engages the readers in discussion, and performs a mini-lesson after the reading. Sometimes after reading a text, the teacher extends the meaning of the text through writing, text analysis, or another learning activity. The lesson may also include work with words based on the specific needs of the small group (p.193).

Shared Reading:

In shared reading the teacher, as an expert reader, models the reading process by reading the text to the learners. The teacher demonstrates use of cues and strategies which support interpretation and evaluation. Learners have opportunities to join in with the reading, and thereby become confident in using these strategies independently.

Interactive Read Aloud:

Research continually demonstrates that reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for success in reading. Well planned and well thought-out interaction

during read-aloud time helps students make meaning of text.

In an interactive read-aloud the teacher engages in a series of activities, including: introducing the book; asking students to make predictions and connections to prior knowledge; stopping at purposeful moments to emphasize story elements, ask guiding questions or focus questions; and using oral or written responses to bring closure to the selection.