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How Guided Reading Works with Jan Richardson

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How Guided Reading Works with Jan Richardson

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As we get 'back2best,' let's take some time to review our guided reading structure. Jan Richardson walks us through the structure and beliefs of guided reading best practices. This podcast also dives into the value of informal assessments in order to inform our future instruction/groups.

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How Guided Reading Works: Jan Richardson

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Join Jenny and Greg as they sit down with Jan Richardson author of “The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading” book. A great conversation about guided reading, fluency, and the important role that guided reading plays in a child’s education. www.iccpodcast.com

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After reading, respond to the following...

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After reading, respond to the following...

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1. What did you think about as you listened to this podcast: "How Guided Reading Works"?

2. What are you still wondering about this topic?

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1. As I listened to "How Guided Reading Works?" I thought about the structures and systems we have in place in District 54. I thought that Jan Richardson brought up some good points when monitoring progress of our students and information to keep in mind when we are working with our students during the guided reading time. Those minutes we have with our students is so precious and should be well thought out. As we plan we know that we have a curriculum to keep in mind. This curriculum we should follow but it is also important to keep in mind the students needs in front of us. While planning I make sure to touch on the skill and standard focus for that week but also the needs of the students. For example, if the student needs work on decoding I will help the students use the strategies they have connected with a new strategy that I might show them to help propel them forward. I can wrap up the lesson by modeling or working with the group to come up with the answer to comprehension questions about the standard and skill focus. When I am with the group the following day I will make sure the same student understands their goal and what they should be working on when they are reading in the group. Once they are proficient using that strategy we will work together to find another area of focus for the student.
2. I am curious about Jan's intervention program. Would this be something we could look into for our students? Would parts of this program help our struggling readers? I would like to look further into this program to see what we can include in our guided reading/ acceleration time for our students that would propel them forward in their reading. They mentioned that 6 weeks with the program helps the student to reach grade level. I would love to learn more!

-Sam Dzieman

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1. As I listened to the podcast I thought about and agreed with how important it is for teachers to be responsive and  intentional about their lesson for guided reading. Jan Richardson discussed the assess, decide, guide framework where she uses informal assessments from the day before to make a decision on what students need to guide the lesson that day. This framework allows every lesson to count because students are getting exactly what they need. I think in our district we have really shifted to this framework as well. A big shift is not overplanning for guided reading and feeling tied to that plan, but rather allowing the students to guide your plans based on their needs.

2. I am interested in reading Jan’s new book, “The Next Step Forward in Reading Intervention” to find out more about this model. As a teacher of tier 3 reading groups, I am always looking for ideas to speed up the process of getting students closer to grade level.

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1. I just completed my reading teacher endorsement and we used Jan's model for guided reading in our classwork and tutoring, so I am familiar with her model. I haven't listened to any podcasts of her talking about it so I was intrigued. There were a few notes I was writing down as I was listening. First, her statement "that guided reading isn't following curriculum, it is following the student" really stuck with me. As teachers, we feel a lot of pressure to stick to curriculum and follow the set plan. For appropriate guided reading instruction, we have to work with where the student currently is in order to help. I agreed with her point that comprehension is always the goal, but we may have to cross a few bridges before we can target that (Ex: decoding). I found her very easy to listen to and I was engrossed in the podcast. I also really liked her point about making sure we are valuing reflective readers rather than focusing on one specific skill such as fluency. Although fluent readers are ideal, we should be focusing more on their ability to attend to punctuation, show emotion and intonation. I have seen first hand how the fluency reads can stress out students and they speed read quickly rather than reflecting on what they are reading as they are reading. This is detrimental to their comprehension skills and overall reading habits.
2. One main question comes to mind as I was listening to this. Since I am familiar with her work, I know there are several portions of her 20 minutes of guided reading. If I am being honest, since I began in 54 I felt that the words "word work" were not to be uttered. I am curious how much of her model we can incorporate into our district 54 practices as I have seen the benefit through my tutoring practicum. I know that I have personally felt pressure to ensure I am always doing the same practices (graphic organizers, etc) as Tier I in my Tier II instruction instead of being able to focus more on their needs and dissecting into the logistics of reading as Jan was talking about before we can get to that goal of comprehension.

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How Guided Reading Works- Rebecca Peraino

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How Guided Reading Works- Rebecca Peraino

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1. I really enjoyed this podcast because it focused on the multiple components of guided reading. As I was listening, I thought about my own students and how guided reading looks in my classroom. I was pleased to hear that my guided reading block reflects Jan Richardson's framework. I strategically select books at students' instructional level so I can challenge students and support them as they read. During each guided group, students are reading, writing, and learning about/practicing new words. I agree that reading and writing are interconnected, therefore, students should understand how they relate and build off each other. Another takeaway I had was about fluent readers. I'm glad our district does not require timed reading fluency tests, because fluent readers are not necessarily the fastest. A lot of my feedback for students centers around how to be a fluent reader. Some things a fluent reader does are pausing at punctuation marks, using proper intonation and inflection, etc. I always use the analogy of reading how we talk. In a conversation, our voices go up and down, we don't sound like a robot. We should do the same as we read.
2. One point from the podcast that I would like to learn more about is when we should start discouraging finger tracking as students read. As Jan mentioned, sometimes pointing at words while reading doesn't give students' eyes the chance to practice tracking appropriately. I would like to know the age or reading level where students should start focusing on tracking with their eyes instead of with their fingers.
Another idea I am still wondering about is how RTI should move kids out. As a 1/2 dual language teacher, I often see 1st graders on the RTI caseload that reappear the following year in 2nd grade. How can we take actionable steps to move kids out of RTI if they still need certain supports or are not making significant progress?

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1. As I listened to the "How Guided Reading Works" podcast, I heard Jan Richardson talking about Balanced Literacy and that Guided Reading is one part of that Balanced Literacy. We still need Shared Reading, Writing Workshop, and Read Aloud time in addition to Guided Reading. I do think Guided Reading is definitely extremely important, but we have to remember that the other components are just as important.
This quote really resonated with me: Guided Reading "encourages productive struggle so they can practice strategies." We don't want the guided reading books to be easy, otherwise they would be independent. Rather, we want them to be just challenging enough so that the students have to use strategies to figure out a few words or truly thing about what the characters are doing.
I liked when Jan said that educators are "not following a curriculum;" rather, we are following a child. The child is the center of the educational process.

2. I am wondering how to best help my students this year so they "catch up" by the end of the year. Many of my students are a bit behind where they should normally be this time of year. I want to make the most of the valuable Guided Reading time. I do have the lowest students working with support staff so they get a double dip of Guided Reading. But when they are with me, I want to give them the "most bang for their buck." I want to make the biggest impact I can in those 20 minutes.
I would be interested in reading Jan's book and seeing her strategies. It might be fun to do that as a book club some time.

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1. While listening to the podcast, I was mostly thinking about what guided reading looks like in my classroom and how I challenge and support my students as they read. Jan Richardson mentioned that she is a "running record junkie" and recently, my school has been working to utilize running records in more purposeful ways, i.e. utilizing them to inform instruction by analyzing miscues and giving valuable feedback. I also love how she mentioned the importance of choosing strategic texts for the student rather than the curriculum. This made me reflect about how I am choosing texts, I feel like I can do a better job of choosing texts for the goal of the specific students in front of me.
2. I would like to learn more about her new text and how her intervention program works. It sounds like a beneficial program!