Guided Reading

The article I read, "Looking Back to Move Forward with Guided Reading," by Michael Ford and Michael Opitz, discusses how important guided reading is and that it's one of the most common elements of today's reading programs. The article defines guided reading as reading instruction in which the teacher provides the structure and purpose for reading and for responding to the material read. We've mentioned in other education courses that we can find guided reading lessons in most basal books. The article states the purpose of this guided reading is to help students relate background knowledge to the story, establish a purpose for reading, help students make connections with previous read stories, get a "wholeness" of the story, promote fluency, foster rhythmical reading, relate details to a big idea, and help develop organizational skills and promote efficient study habits. The article also provides teacher procedures, such as asking students major motivating questions, ask questions to guide the children through the stories, and help answer major motivating questions. I really liked how this article distinctly defined the difference between small group reading and guided reading. I must admit, I wasn't sure of the difference before I read this article. But the article explains how in small reading groups, all the students read the same story from the basal. But now, with guided reading becoming more practices, basal reading programs started to separately package leveled readers.  The article states that in guided reading, scaffolding becomes the metaphor for teaching and learning. Since we've been discussing scaffolding and it's importance in reading education, this article definitely hit home. I was able to relate many of the previous articles read to this one.