Guided Reading for 5th grade

[scrapnteach]

I am trying to incorporate guided reading into my 5th grade classroom, but have encountered some problems. I would appreciate any insight that you could give me. I thought when you had guided reading groups that they should be reading on the same level, the same text, but then I am hearing that the groups should be flexible and change often. How can they change that often, if you want to keep students with the same reading level together?? I was thinking of doing Literature Circles with my higher kids and more of a guided reading approach with the lower acheiving students. Do you think that will work?

 

[teachnmom]

Fountas and Pinell have a 2nd book- Guiding Readers and Writer's in the Upper Grades. It's an awesome resource for teaching GR to upper level kids.

 

[LA]

Guided Reading

Guided reading is when you have a group of kids, no more than five, at the same reading level. You want to build on the reading level that they are. Group the kids according to their reading levels. Ex. high, low and medium. While you are working with that group, the rest of them should be busy doing something and make sure you dont have any interruptions.

 

[AMW]

Guided Reading

Hi,

Often guided reading groups are grouped according to ability. All students in one group should be at the same reading level and reading the same text. They don't necessarily need to change often. It depends on their progression. Let's say you have a group of 4 or 5 students, and one student seems to be moving towards the next reading level. You can pull that child out of their current group and put them in the next reading level group. That's what it means by flexibility and change.

I think your approach of lit. circles with higher levels and guided reading with those who need more instruction is a good idea. That's how I run my groups. My lit. circle groups focus more on comprehension and understanding/discussing the novel on a deeper level. With the lower groups they may still need more work on comprehension and more basic levels of discussion and understanding. So, yes, I think that works well.

 

[raya]

Additional question...

Personally I think your planned approach (with guided for lower and lit. circles for upper) sounds as though it should be effective. I have a related question for anyone who would like to respond about guided reading. I moved from lower to upper elementary this year and at the lower level each time we began a new text, it would be read with support, either echo reading or choral reading, this was followed by a 2nd independent reading of the same text. Is this still appropriate for 5th grade. Several teachers in my building say they have their students read the text independently to begin with-I thought guided reading was supposed to be conducted at the instructional level, i.e. needing support and guidance with the reading? Any thoughts or alternate approaches would be appreciated. Thanks...

 

[AMW]

Raya...

Guided Reading changes in the upper grades vs. the primary grades. Typically in the upper grades students are expected to be fluent readers who have natural word decoding skills (unless they are below grade level and struggling). Of course in primary grades the focus is on becoming fluent readers and learning those word decoding skills.

What I do for upper elementary is this...introduce the text, discuss the cover, what it might be about, and make predictions. I may also give them a quick summary of what the book is about. Typically you wouldn't read the text together. I usually assign them a certain amount to read, whether it's pages or chapter(s). The focus tends to be more on comprehension and being able to discuss the text at a deeper level (inference, connections to the story, etc). Children in 5th grade who are on grade level and fluent readers don't really need to read the text together in a guided reading group.

If you still have students who struggle with word decoding, you could read the text together.

Hope this helps!

 

[Ross]

Yea!!

Guided Reading rocks! I am so glad you have decided to incorporate it into your classroom.

 

[scrapnteach]

Thanks!

I am really excited about getting this up and running in my classroom.
Thanks for all the advice!