What Guided Reading Looks like

"Guided reading is a small group instructional context in which a teacher supports each reader’s development through systems of strategic actions for processing new texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty.” (Fountas and Pinnell, 2017)

Guided reading is focused on reading

It is not only a phonics lesson. The act of reading the text independently, with the support of the teacher, should be the centerpiece of a guided reading lesson. Fifty to sixty percent of reading instruction time should be spent on students reading. So, for example, in a 20-minute guided reading lesson, students should read for 10 to 12 minutes.

what doesn’t happen in guided reading

Round-robin or popcorn reading, or taking turns, whether in or out of order. As we all know, when students take turns reading, those waiting for their turn are practicing what they will read, and those who have finished reading just check out (Allington, 2013). So in guided reading, all students are reading, even if they’re whisper-reading or reading silently.

small group learning

Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Hattie have explained in Visible Learning for Literacy, Grades K-12: Implementing the Practices That Work Best to Accelerate Student Learning (2016) that small-group learning has been shown to accelerate student learning, if two conditions are met:

Guided reading must occur in flexible groups. A teacher moves a student out of a group as soon as there is sufficient evidence that a student's reading behaviors are appropriate, her word accuracy shows mastery and her comprehension is sufficient. And in order to know that a student has reached that level, the teacher must monitor student progress on an ongoing basis.
Guided reading instruction must match the needs of the learner.

So guided reading must be in small, flexible groups and the instructional focus must be based on student needs.