May 22. 2017
Building a community of readers and writers in your classroom is a way of teaching them what it means to be human. Reading and writing are not isolated, competitive skills that must be constantly tested. Written language was invented as a way of recording truth and communicating it.
May 19. 2017
All students need consistent and clear messages across instructional contexts. Our belief is that the curriculum must have a coherent design and a coherent underlying literacy theory rather than simply being a mix of “this and that,” without an eye to how different parts work together to form a cohesive whole.
May 18. 2017
Each time you prompt in a guided reading lesson, it is a call to action. It evokes something the reader can do. You need to teach for the strategic action before you can call for the reader to engage it. When you see the reader is engaging in the behaviors independently, you move beyond prompting to reinforce it.
May 17. 2017
Over the past few months, we have slowly pulled back the curtain on Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™--a first-of-its-kind system for high-quality, classroom-based literacy instruction. There have been blog posts, webinars, and Twitter chats covering every angle of this exciting new system. In case you missed anything, below is a recap. More...
May 17. 2017
In our highly literate society, the ability to read is an important component in an individual’s quality of life.
May 15. 2017
A literate life is the right of every child, and most students need expert teaching to have access to that life.
May 12. 2017
When students process one text, they learn to think in new ways and take these expanded understandings to every other text they read.
May 11. 2017
Guided Reading provides a context for responsive teaching, which is grounded in the teacher's knowledge and respect for each student.
May 10. 2017
Within guided reading, students learn how to think like readers and expand their in-the-head network of systems of strategic actions.
May 9. 2017
Guided reading offers many advantages as you work with students who need extra help. Your support makes it possible for them to learn from their reading just as your stronger readers are doing. Here are ten specific suggestions for working in guided reading with readers who need extra help:
- Involve them in guided reading every day. The students at the lower end of the achievement continuum are the ones least likely to gain from independent work; they need the most instruction. Carefully selecting texts for them and providing supportive instruction will enable them gradually to tackle more difficult texts.
- Provide appropriate levels of text for them to read. Students can not use effective reading strategies when the texts are too difficult. Use the text gradient to find books that students can read and, at the same time, find interesting.
- Guide them to search for information in the text. As students raise questions during discussion, they may need to confirm their hypotheses with information from the text. Teach them how to search for information in the text to find answers to their questions.
- Emphasize fluency in reading so that language can power the reading process. Many struggling readers read slowly. Reading slowly interferes with comprehension; however, the slower you read, the harder it is to think of the text as conveying meaning. As students read texts at the appropriate level, you may need to teach fluency. Activities like shared reading, choral reading, readers' theater, poetry sharing, and audio books support fluency.
- Give them opportunities to discuss their reading. More than other students, struggling readers need time to talk before reading, while reading, and after reading. The greater their struggle, the more essential the conversation.
- Have them write in connection with reading. Writing is the ideal activity to extend their understanding of what they read; and they learn more about writing at the same time.
- Provide opportunities for silent reading. Silent reading is faster than oral reading. It is also easier to comprehend when reading silently.
- Provide a few minutes of word work at the end of the guided reading lesson. Using magnetic letters, dry-erase boards, or markers and paper, quickly explore principles that will help struggling readers understand how words work (for example, changing letter clusters with the same rime to make new words).
- Be sure that they spend their time reading text. Struggling readers especially need to spend their time actually reading rather than doing all of the extraneous activities that seem to surround reading.
- Introduce them to series books in guided reading lessons. Almost all students in the intermediate grades love series books; they are especially good for students who need extra help because they provide extra practice on easy material.
Adapted from Guiding Readers and Writers by Irens C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Copyright (c) 2001 by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Published by Heinemann.
