Running head: GUIDED READING SUMMARY 1

Guided Reading Summary

Rolanda S. Hardy

July 24, 2017

Trinity Washington University

EDTE 421- Professor Terlop

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Guided Reading Summary

I conducted my guided reading lessons at Kinderhaus in Cleveland Park, Washington, DC.

My classroom consists of three and four-year-olds. I chose to select three students from the next

classroom of four and five-year-olds. Because I wanted to work with emergent readers I chose to

work with Bradley (5 years old), Ben (5 years old), and Oscar (4 years old). These students were

chosen because as emergent readers, they can write their first name without a model, identify at

least 40 uppercase and lowercase letters by name, demonstrate left-to-right directionality,

understand enough English to follow simple directions, and know at least eight sounds

(Richardson, 2016, p. 53).

A critical goal for these students was to enhance their understandings of print concepts.

Level A readers are so predictable that it became easy for the children to memorize the pattern and

disregard the words on the page. Therefore, my goal became to teach one-to-one matching and

using pictures to reinforce meaning before you teach cross-checking (Richardson, 2016, p. 62).

Additionally, I did not want students to focus on decoding without comprehension. Schickedanz

and Collins (2013) claim there are two different, but simultaneous, processes in which readers

engage: decoding and comprehending (p. 7). On the emergent reader level, teachers prepare

students to be able to learn to read and read to learn. This method will help students to be able to

comprehend what they are reading and gather information from text. I learned to read very young,

but did not learn to comprehend. As a result, even now I need to reread text multiple times to fully

understand the material.

With these goals in mind, the presented lessons related to their experiences in camp as well

as their displayed interests. The first lesson correlated with the book Fun in the Water. Since I

wanted to draw them into this new experience, I chose a text they could all relate to, being that
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they participate in water play at the splash park daily. The Big Cat was chosen for its relatability

to other texts we have read and to some students home lives. During the first lesson, two students

commented that Fun in the Water looked like a boring, adult book. In and Out was perfect for

the last lesson as it incorporates a small level of comedy for these young children. I was certain

they would love when the pigs stay in the mud. Other facets of the lesson required intentionality

also. Word study activities purposely included the letters d, b, and p, as the students failed to

consistently identify these letters. Sight word reviews began with the words from the Quick

Phonics Screener I was provided with in this course. I chose to begin with these words because I

noticed the students had difficulty with short e and u sounds.

The assessment process entailed observations of students, interview tasks, the collection of

photographs and writing samples. Prior to the first lesson, students were assessed on the alphabet,

letter sound, and sight word knowledge. This was done by interview. Students were presented with

letters and words and were asked to identify their names and sounds. During each lesson, I focused

my attention on one child to determine, not only their ability to correctly decode words, but their

process for arriving at their responses. I collected photographs of their writing and made notes

about their reading behaviors (for example, are they pointing to each letter, are they referring to

the pictures for clues, and are they attempting to sound out new or unfamiliar words). Running

records became another form of assessment to discern student errors and decide future teaching

points. Because I am still new to Richardsons framework, I could benefit from following her

suggestion to ask a colleague to observe the student while you teach a guided reading lesson. He

or she might notice behaviors you missed (p. 95). Richardsons model is designed for use in

single-teacher classrooms. Having two teachers in my room is beneficial because I could have an

extra set of eyes to periodically observe and document student performance and behaviors.
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As a result of conducting these lessons, students were able to achieve success with their

first experiences with reading. Ben and Bradley display extreme excitement to continue learning

more. These lessons demonstrated that we must cultivate their dispositions (curiosity, desire,

play) to actively seek, explore, and use books and print (Roskos, Christie, & Richgels, 2013, p.

5). While two students were very excited to develop their reading skills, Oscar, on the other hand,

was very disinterested. He generally shows little motivation in learning outside of trucks and dirt.

I will need to find a way to channel his enthusiasm towards print.

Overall, implementing these guided reading lessons was a valuable experience. I plan to

conduct additional lessons throughout the summer to be prepared to complete these during the

school year at a lower level. Richardson (2016) warns that the downside of using patterned texts

is that they can lead children toward thinking reading is only about memorizing a pattern and

looking at the pictures. Once students have mastered one-to-one matching and learned 15-20 sight

words, move them to less patterned text at Level C (p. 63). Moving forward with Ben, Bradley,

and Oscar, I plan to develop sight word centers and activities to move them toward Level C texts.

While I am very proud of the progress I have made in my understanding of the Guided Reading

process, my next goal is to better analyze student errors, as they will tell you a great deal about

which strategic actions the student uses and which ones you should teach next (Richardson, 2016,

p. 55). Essentially, if I am not properly analyzing students performance to plan for their next

experiences, the effectiveness of this framework is diminished.

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References

Roskos, K. A., Christie, J. F., & Richgels, D. J. (2003). The essentials of early literacy

instruction. Young Children, 58(2), 52-60.

Richardson, J. (2016). The next step forward in guided reading: an assess-decide-guide

framework for supporting every reader. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Schickedanz, J. A., & Collins, M. F. (2013). So much more than the ABCs: the early phases of

reading and writing. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young

Children.
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Footnotes
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Tables

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