After reflecting on my first year back in 2nd grade, I realized that my guided reading instruction needs improvement. This past school year I focused on guided math and I'm feeling pretty confident about that so now is the perfect time to take a look at reading.
I'll be sharing my takeaways from the following chapters from Jan Richardson's Next Step Forward in Guided Reading:
Chapter 4: Early Readers Levels D-I (DRA Levels 6-16)
Chapter 5: Transitional Readers Level J-P (DRA Levels 18-38)
Chapter 7: Moving Forward with Comprehension Instruction
This post will share my take aways from Chapter 4: The Early Readers (Levels D-I, DRA Levels 6-16).
- There are 2 essential assessments for teaching early readers: a reading conference and a spelling assessment (pg. 107-109). My last school administered the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) and the DSA (Developmental Spelling Assessment). We analyzed data from these assessments to form reading groups and word study groups. JR says that the number of errors is not as important as determining why the student made those errors and deciding what strategic actions will accelerate the child. All errors aren't equal. You should be asking yourself "what kid of action does the child take at difficulty? did the student monitor using visual information? is there a pattern in the child's errors?"
- Consider a "range" of instructional levels (pg. 110). Choose a lower level if you want to focus on oral reading fluency and a higher level if you want to practice decoding strategies.
- Once you've analyzed the assessment results, form groups (pg. 115). JR suggests 5 groups max with 4 kids max per group. I can understand the logic of having smaller groups while students are at this level however I know it may not be feasible with 22-28 students in our classrooms.
- For "early readers" it is wise to delay teaching comprehension strategies until students are independent word solvers (pg. 115) While this makes perfect sense, this may be unrealistic due to district standards. Our 2nd graders start the 3rd week with taking cold read assessments, and then take them every 3 weeks. My DRA ranges last year were from level 4-28 at the beginning of the year. JR says, "when choosing a strategy focus for this level, always consider self monitoring for meaning, work on monitoring for visual information word solving strategies and fluency. Once those are strong, choose retelling as a focus."
- Guided Reading Materials (pg. 116)
- dry erase boards, markers, erasers
- 6-8 sets of magnetic letters on individual trays or sorted in a box
- sight word chart
- pictures for sorting sounds
- sound box and analogy chart templates in plastic sheet protectors
- guided writing journals
- leveled books
- timer
- 2 Day Lesson Plan, 20 minutes (pg. 117)
- Day 1- sight word review, introduce new book, read book with prompting, discuss and teach, teach a new sight word, word study activity
- Day 2- sight word review, read book with prompting, discuss and teach, reteach sight word, guided writing
Now that it's the last week of summer school I hope to jump into Chapter 5!
