Introduction

It is estimated that one in three children experience significant difficulties in learning to read (Adams, 1990). Research conducted during the past two decades has produced extensive results demonstrating that children who get off to a poor start in reading rarely catch up (Lentz, 1988; Neuman & Dickinson, 2001; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Torgesen, 1998; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001); a child who is a poor reader in first grade is 88% more likely to remain a poor reader in fourth grade (Juel, 1988). Not surprisingly, the early years are the focus for the prevention of reading difficulties (Clay, 1993; Pinnell, 1989; Slavin, Madden, Dolan, & Wasik, 1996).

One particular research-based strategy, guided reading, is an important “best practice” associated with today’s balanced literacy instruction. It has become one of the most important contemporary reading instructional practices in the U.S. (Fawson & Reutzel, 2000) and accepted as a particularly appropriate strategy for children who are moving toward fluency in the early years of literacy development (Mooney, 1990).

The purpose of this article is to: (1) define and describe the key elements of guided reading; (2) provide a rationale for guided reading; (3) describe the teacher’s role in the guided reading process; and (4) demonstrate how to implement a guided reading lesson into practice.

What is Guided Reading?

Guided reading is a teaching approach used with all readers, struggling or independent, that has three fundamental purposes: to meet the varying instructional needs of all the students in the classroom, enabling them to greatly expand their reading powers (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001); to teach students to read increasingly difficult texts with understanding and fluency; to construct meaning while using problem-solving strategies to figure out unfamiliar words that deal with complex sentence structures, and understand concepts or ideas not previously encountered.

Guided reading usually involves small groups of students who are at a similar place in their reading development. These students can demonstrate similar learning needs and process text at about the same level. Small-group instruction is effective because teaching is focused precisely on what the students need to learn next to move forward. Ongoing observation of students, combined with systematic assessment, enable teachers to draw together groups of students who fit a particular instructional profile.

The teacher’s goal is to strive to provide the most effective instruction possible and to match the difficulty of the material with the student’s current abilities. Materials should provide a challenge that is “just right” for the students. When working with a classroom of twenty to thirty students, it is impossible to select texts that will “fit them all.” For some, the text will be so difficult that they cannot possibly learn anything positive about reading as they struggle simply to “get through it.” For others, the text will be so easy it won’t offer the appropriately stimulating reading challenge necessary for learning. Selecting and introducing texts for a particular group of students who share similar developmental needs at a point in time creates a context that supports learning (Fountas & Pinnel, 2001).

Traditional Versus Dynamic Grouping

Traditionally, only one kind of grouping—based on ability—was used for classroom reading instruction. Assumptions that undergird traditional reading groups was the focus on skills to read the selections in a basal text; static, unchanging groups; vocabulary was pre-taught; controlled vocabulary; workbook and worksheet exercises form the response to reading; instruction was focused on a systematic progression of skills in the basal text as measured by an end of unit test; and round robin reading where children take turns reading a page or a line (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996; Schulman & Payne, 2000).

Grouping that is dynamic or flexible, and varied allows students to support one another as readers and to feel part of a community of readers. Guided reading groups are temporary, an important difference from traditional grouping practice. Groups are expected to change. Dynamic groups avoid the traditional problems of grouping, because teachers change the composition of groups regularly to accommodate the different learning paths of readers. Skilled teaching, which begins with observation, is the key to successful dynamic grouping (Iaquinta, 2003).

Essential Elements of Guided Reading

The goal of guided reading is to develop a self-extending system of reading that enables the reader to discover more about the process of reading while reading. As children develop these understandings they self-monitor, search for cues, discover new things about the text, check one source of information against another, confirm their reading, self-correct, and solve new words using multiple sources of information. Throughout this process, the central elements of accuracy, speed, and fluency increase and over time these systems become increasingly automatic. Therefore, the role of the teacher is essential to guided reading. Teachers must know how to prompt and guide students as they work to build this self-extending system of reading (Table I).

Table I. Teacher Prompts to Facilitate a Self-Extending System of Reading
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Teachers need to direct children’s attention to using multiple sources of information in a skilled way: this can be done by giving children the opportunity to read many texts that offer just the right amount of challenge (not too hard and not too easy). Teachers monitor students as they read, prompting for strategies and word identification as needed. They move from student to student, listening in as the student reads aloud. After younger children finish reading the selection, teachers often invite them to reread it to build fluency and to practice reading new vocabulary. Teacher prompts help children learn how to think about different sources of information as they put together a flexible system of strategies they can apply increasingly difficult text. The process of reading must be dynamically supported by an interaction of text reading and good teaching. Guided reading serves this important goal.

A Rationale for Guided Reading

As children work with text, they develop a network of strategies that allows them to attend to information from different sources. Information from these sources is, for the most part, implicitly or subconsciously held, but it is the foundation for reading text in a smooth and fluent way (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). Clay (1993) clusters these sources of information into three sources as the semantic (meaning), syntactic (language structure), and graphophonemic (visual information) systems that are necessary to become a skilled reader. These “sources of information” are referred to in the research literature as the three-cueing systems of reading (Table II).

Table II. Three-cueing Systems of Reading
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Teacher’s Role in the Guided Reading Process

In a truly balanced literacy program, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Skillful teachers use their knowledge of literacy development and literacy processes to decide where to go next, independently of the commercial materials they use; when to intervene and when not to; when to draw children’s attention to which features of text; and how to model and explain strategies in ways that children can make their own. Guided reading, as a component of a balanced literacy program, starts with good first teaching (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996).

Paramount to the success of guided reading is understanding the point at which the teacher introduces such skills. Every guided reading lesson is different because each group of readers has different strengths and needs. A framework for guided reading lessons (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001) provides for different kinds of learning in different ways; each element has a function related to students’ ability to construct meaning. These components work together to form a unified whole and create a solid base from which to build comprehension.

  • Selecting the text.

  • Introducing the text.

  • Reading the text.

  • Discussing and revising the text.

  • Teaching for processing strategies.

  • Extending the meaning of the text.

  • Word work.

Framework for Guided Reading

The framework for a guided reading lesson can be used to scaffold the teacher’s role to ensure that the essential elements are implemented and integrated throughout instruction. Excerpts from a guided reading lesson (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001) are illustrated within the framework to illuminate how each component is addressed within the context of the lesson (Table III).

Table III. Teacher’s Role Before, During, and After Guided Reading Instruction
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Summary

According to the National Research Council (NRC) (2002), one in five children is estimated to have difficulty learning to read in school; other researchers estimate that as many as 45% of our children are having difficulty learning to read (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 1999). The NRC report asserts that reading problems are more likely to occur among children who are poor, are minorities, attend urban schools, or arrive at school not speaking English (Snow et al. 1998). The National Reading Panel (2000) argued that balanced approaches are preferable when teaching children to read, based on their review of scientific research-based reading instructional practices used by teachers in classrooms across the country. Additionally, guided reading practices as part of a balanced literacy program conform to the recommendations on literacy as suggested in position statements by the International Reading Association/The National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998), and the National Council of Teachers of English (2002).

Guided reading provides the necessary opportunity for teachers to explicitly teach reading strategies at the students’ individual levels. Guided reading reinforces problem-solving, comprehension, and decoding. And, it provides opportunities for establishing good reading habits and strategies. The critical element, however, is the skillful teaching that helps young readers learn the effective strategies they need to become independent.