What is Guided Reading?

Guided Reading is one part of a Balanced Literacy Program. Other key elements of Balanced Literacy include read aloud, reading mini-lessons, shared & independent reading, phonological awareness tasks (in the younger grades), phonics, spelling & word study, writing, speaking, listening, and digital literacy. Together, these daily and weekly experiences help students to grow into powerful, avid, lifelong readers and thinkers!

Here is an example of a guided reading for a group of second grade students: Sloane’s GR Lesson

The focus of this lesson is learning how to make strong predictions-a critical comprehension literacy skill. The students enjoy a high level of instructional scaffolding initially, but then once they seem to be getting the hang of it, they are released to read the story independently and to apply their new strategy, in concert with all of the other decoding and comprehension strategies at their disposal. During that independent reading time, the teacher has an opportunity to listen to and confer with students 1:1. Then the lesson closes with a comprehension conversation. Anecdotal notes help the teacher to reflect on each child's progress and to plan for future instruction.