Guided Reading Programs

Guided Reading Encourages Students to Tackle New Challenges

Guided reading is one method that teachers use to increase comprehension and fluency. It is an important aspect of a reading curriculum because it "gives students the chance to apply the strategies they already know to new text."

While some students are occupied with silent reading, the teacher will gather a small group of students of similar skill levels for a guided reading session. The teacher selects a text that has difficult aspects - new words or more complex and compound sentences. She will discuss the book before reading starts, giving background or providing information about the author. She may also use this period to teach or review a reading strategy. The teacher then observes and helps students as they read. She will often check to see if certain reading strategies are being used. Depending on the teacher, students may read aloud in turn, or they may read aloud separately, with the teacher moving from student to student to listen.

Guided reading involves the use of leveled reading texts, which are usually labeled A to Z, according to difficulty. The books are carefully written to include interesting content and practice in fluency, comprehension, phonics, and vocabulary study.

Your child's school may already employ guided reading in the classroom. If not, you may want to find such a program in your community. Many tutoring programs used guided reading. Among them is Sylvan Learning, which has found that "guided oral reading has a positive affect on comprehension and complete reading ability." You might also contact local after-school programs and libraries for information on reading programs.

Leveled readers can be used at home with your child. Many libraries and bookstores have leveled readers available. A number of companies have websites where you can order books to be shipped or purchase downloadable books. These include are Rigby, the Wright Group, and Reading A-Z. Scholastic is also a good resource, and it has leveled readers developed by Dr. Gay Su Pinnell, an authority on guided reading.