3.+The+Program

The Program
Guided Reading (GR) is an instructional approach/program that involves teachers working with small groups of students in grades 1-3 who demonstrate similar reading behaviours and who read at a similar instructional level. Texts are considered to be at a student’s instructional level if they are read at about 90% accuracy (90-94% accuracy is considered to be an instructional reading level) (Clay, 2002). The reading groups are flexible and based on short-term needs. GR is a time for students to read unfamiliar text that has some challenge to it. The students apply known strategies to the unfamiliar text. The teacher then provides support in developing new strategies while reading. It is an opportunity for all the students in the group to independently and quietly read from their own copy of the text. GR develops students’ comprehension, fluency, and critical response to different types of text. It provides a supportive setting where students feel confident to meet new challenges. GR allows the teacher to observe students while they work with unfamiliar text and to provide ‘just in time’ instruction within meaningful contexts. Assessment for learning is embedded in the process as teachers take regular running records of student reading to inform instruction. Running records allow teachers to capture what students say and do while they are reading continuous text (Clay, 2002). Formal assessments of student reading are conducted four times during the course of the school year: at the beginning of the program to establish preliminary GR groups; in November, prior to fall report cards; in March, prior to spring report cards; and finally at the end of the year to track longitudinal growth and overall program effectiveness. The ultimate goal is for the students to achieve independent reading of increasingly difficult text. (An assumption that we may make is that independent reading implies reading with comprehension as well as fluency.)

Fountas and Pinnell (1996) wrote that guided reading is not static and will vary over time as readers grow in knowledge, skill, and experience. Similarly, the materials and instruction provided by teachers will also change depending of the instructional level of the students. According to Fountas and Pinnell (2007), “it is important for all students to receive guided reading instruction at a level that allows them to process texts successfully with teacher support” (p. 7). Therefore, it is possible that students in older grades (e.g., grade 4 or 5) may require guided reading instruction that is similar to the instruction provided in earlier grades. In their continuum of literacy learning, Fountas and Pinnell identify curriculum goals and characteristics of texts, for grades 3 to 8, that could be used to inform guided reading instruction with older students. Most of the information provided in the program is taken from the works of Fountas and Pinnell. If it is not, then it is cited appropriately.

Statistics
For the purpose of the guided reading program evaluation we will study grade one, grade two, and grade three classes with 16 students in each class. The total number of students is 48 with the age range of the students being 5-8 years old. A cross section of general ability and gender will be considered. All students from the three classrooms from L. B. School will participate and be observed. Grade one: 8 females, 8 males; 4 ELLs (English language learners); ages 5 years, 7 months, to 6 years 6 months; one student has ASD (Autism spectrum disorder) Grade two: 9 females, 7 males; 2 ELLs; ages 6 years 7 months to 7 years, 6 months; one student with an identified learning disability Grade three: 11 males, 5 females; no ELLs; 7 years 7 months to 8 years, 6 months; no identified special learning needs

What does the Program intend to Accomplish?
Fountas and Pinnell state that guided reading leads to independent reading and gives children an opportunity to grow as individual readers. It provides the readers with an opportunity to develop and apply reading strategies so that they can independently read increasingly difficult texts and to read for meaning. Guided reading develops skills needed for independent reading, and assists in teaching students to learn how to introduce texts to themselves. Guided reading is part of a balanced literacy program which measures fluency and reading comprehension by using a diagnostic and developmental reading assessments, daily observations, and gathering of anecdotal records. Teachers gather observational data over time to document progress which provides information to guide daily teaching and tracks the progress of individual students. This information is a basis for reporting to parents, helps a school staff to assess the effectiveness of the instructional program, and provides children with evidence of their growth. Guided reading also encourages home and community involvement by assisting parents to participate in the school curriculum, allowing opportunity for children to show their families what they are learning, and increases reading opportunities for students. According to Fountas and Pinnell (1996) the objective of Guided Reading is that teachers work with a small group of students who have similar reading levels and processes. The teacher selects and introduces new books and supports students reading the whole text to themselves while making teaching points during and after the reading. Guided reading provides the opportunity for students to read and attend to words in a wide variety of texts, and to use strategies to problem solve while reading for meaning. Special attention to letters and words and how they work are integrated through guided reading activities. Guided reading helps students become familiar with letter forms, learn to use visual aspects of print, provides opportunities to notice and use letters and words that are embedded in texts, provides opportunities to manipulate letters and make words, helps students link sounds with letters and letter clusters and helps students use what they know about words to solve new words. Students develop a network of strategies that assist in attending to information from meaning cues, structure or syntax, and visual information. Good readers search for and use meaning, language structure, and visual information by self-monitoring, cross-checking one source of information against another and self-correcting by predicting, monitoring, and searching for more information.

Materials Required
In order to run smoothly, guided reading programs need flexible leveled reading groups, planned guided reading lessons, research based phonics activities and word study skills for all levels of students, a variety of leveled and challenging texts and genres, charts of poems and songs, labels and directions for materials, a word wall, alphabet charts, and dictionaries. Sufficient space is required to allow teachers to create easy to manage literacy centres with bins and bookshelves to store the collection of guided reading items. A large group area for demonstrations and meetings, an area for small group, partner and independent work, and quiet areas separated from noisy areas. A clipboard with observation charts, running record forms, and student records and other data collection tools will be used to identify students' needs and plan instruction. Professional development and training will need to be implemented in order to ensure success in the guided reading program.

What does the program "not" do?
Guided reading programs do not specifically aim to measure phonemic awareness and alphabetic principle, however, there may be an unintended outcome in the results. Guided reading does not teach concepts in isolation and does not have a pre set of lessons or materials that you use. ‍"Round robin" reading is eliminated as each reader reads the whole text or a unified portion quietly to themselves.Guided reading does not have learners complete exercises or workbook pages as students may write or draw about reading and challenging and leveled books are selected for groups rather than following a rigid sequence for the whole class. In all groups, no matter what the level is, teachers teach for a full range of strategic actions: word solving, searching for and using information, self-monitoring and correcting, summarizing information, maintaining fluency, adjusting for purpose and genre, predicting, making connections (personal, other texts, and world knowledge), synthesizing, inferring, analyzing, and critiquing (Pinnell & Fountas, 2008a).

What did you learn about the program?
Guided reading lessons teaches reading comprehension, increase independent reading and provides instruction in fluency. The lessons provide opportunities to expand vocabulary through reading, conversations and instruction as well as include teaching that expands students' ability to apply phonics phonemic awareness and phonics understandings to the print. Readers solve the words, recognize how the text is organized, make sense of the sentences and paragraphs, and understand what they are reading.

Who will you interview about the program? What will you ask them?
The tree teachers from each grade level, one administrator from the school and five students from grades 1-3 will be interviewed. The students will be selected randomly and will participate in a focus group. Organization and Planning Interview Questions:
 * What kind of reading materials are in place and how are they being utilized?
 * What time and space has been set aside for GR? (lesson scheduling, frequency)
 * How are student assessment data used to determine reading groups?
 * How are GR lessons structured? (i.e. size, duration, lesson components)
 * What kinds of tasks are other students engaged in while GR groups are running?

Training: What kind of training have teachers received in delivering a Guided Reading program? What do you perceive the impact of GR to be on student achievement in reading?

What is your overall impression of the GR program at L. B. Primary School? __Focus Groups:__

The focus groups will be measuring the short-term outcome: development of a positive attitude towards reading as well as student perceptions of themselves as readers. Focus groups will be made up of 5 students that participate regularly in guided reading. There will be 3 focus groups – one from each classroom (grade 1, grade 2, and grade 3). The moderator (evaluator) will record each session for further analysis of the data that the participants are providing. The questions that the moderator will use to lead the discussion are as follows:

//Do you read in places other than at school? // //What do you learn about in your guided reading sessions?// // What helps your reading improve most at school? //

What does current research tell us about this program or similar programs that will assist us in understanding the program and the way it is being implemented?
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The research base for guided reading is presented in the eight components of reading instruction: Reading comprehension is complex and can be taught through processing of connected and coherent texts. The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) has suggested that teaching a combination of reading comprehension techniques is highly effective in helping students recall information, generate questions, and summarize texts. Discussion-based guided reading lessons are "geared toward creating richly textured opportunities for students’ conceptual and linguistic development" (Goldenberg, 1992, p. 317). Goldenberg found that talk surrounding texts has greater depth, and it can stretch students’ language abilities.
 * //All teaching in guided reading lessons has the ultimate goal of teaching reading comprehension. //**

A gradient of text is a teacher tool that is used to assist in the selection of books for guided reading. "Creating a text gradient means classifying books along a continuum based on the combination of variables that support and confirm readers’ strategic actions and offer the problem-solving opportunities that build the reading process" (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996, p. 113). The level takes into account a composite of text factors that we described in other publications (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006; Pinnell & Fountas, 2008).
 * //In guided reading lessons, the teacher provides a sequence of high-quality, engaging texts that support individual progress on a scale of text difficulty. //**

Guided reading is designed to provide a great deal of opportunity to read continuous text. The reading that students do in guided reading groups is strongly supported by instruction to move them further, and it is accompanied by independent rereading of texts or of novel texts at an independent level. The more a student reads, the more likely she will be a proficient reader (Cullinan, 2000; Newkirk, 2009). Book reading is strongly correlated with school success.
 * //Guided reading lessons increase the quantity of independent reading that students do. //**

Members of the NRP found considerable evidence in research to conclude that guided oral reading procedures "tended to improve word recognition, fluency (speed and accuracy of oral reading), and comprehension with most groups." In their synthesis of research, they included a very wide range of guided oral reading techniques, some of which would not generally be used in guided reading lessons. However, teachers frequently do include some focused guided oral reading of passages or sections so that they can become more aware of factors related to fluency—pausing, phrasing, word stress, and intonation (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996, 2006). Vocabulary is an important factor in both decoding words and comprehending text. In general, children are much more likely to be able to solve a word if they already have it in their oral vocabulary (NICHD, 2000). "Teachers must understand that systematic phonics instruction is only one component—albeit a necessary component—of a total reading program; systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension strategies to create a complete reading program. (NICHD, 2000).
 * //Guided reading lessons provide explicit instruction in fluency. //**
 * //Guiding reading lessons provide daily opportunities to expand vocabulary through reading, conversation, and explicit instruction. //**
 * //Guided reading lessons include teaching that expands students’ ability to apply phonemic awareness and phonics understandings to the processing of print. //**

According to the National Reading Panel, the importance of motivation in the effectiveness of any reading program cannot be overestimated. It is critical that future pedagogical research takes into account the approaches that teachers prefer and those that have proven to be the most effective in successful classroom instruction (NICHD, 2000).
 * //Guided reading lessons provide the opportunity for students to write about reading. //**

There is ample evidence that learning is not just a cognitive process, although we often treat it as such in school. According to Lyons, "The brain always gives priority to emotions" (Lyons, 2003, p. 66). Emotion is a factor in whether children learn to read and write. Along with emotion, motivation plays a strong mediating role in the reader’s engagement (Wemtze, 1996). In turn, engagement is strongly related to reading achievement (Cipielewski & Stanovich, 1992; Campbell, Voelkl, & Donahue, 1977). Motivation rests on a constellation of emotional factors such as confidence and a sense of ownership, both related to engagement (Au, 1997). Nystrand and Gamoran, 1991, found that student engagement is connected to incorporation of students’ responses into the discussion and authentic comments and questions (Commeyras & Sumner, 1995).
 * //<span style="font-family: Benton Gothic,Benton Gothic;">Guided reading lessons create engagement in and motivation for reading! //**