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Guided Reading Techniques

Guided reading is one of the reading strategies that have come from “The Four-Blocks Literacy Model”, written by Patricia Cunningham, Dorothy Hall, and Cheryl Sigmon used for teaching reading to children. Using childrens books, teachers offer guided reading techniques in small groups, whole class, and partner systems, assisting the development of reading comprehension. Reading strategies that focus on reading comprehension let the children learn how to predict what comes next in the story line, and for that reason, the techniques are best applied to predictable childrens books used in the younger grades.

While guided reading can be used in teaching reading to any level student, it’s traditionally used in reading strategies for beginning readers. A teacher will divide the class into smaller reading groups that are based on the reading level of the students, or in how they process the material they read in childrens books that are appropriate for their reading level. Choosing appropriate difficulty level books is an extremely important phase that the teacher must be able to do for teaching reading effectively.

Teacher’s use guided reading techniques from “The For-Blocks Literacy Model” in an effort to introduce their students to an expansive range of literature, and at escalating reading levels, while focusing on reading comprehension. They are also incorporating the self-selected reading block within the classroom now, as opposed to the previous reading strategies used where the self-selected childrens books were read only at home. Children who don’t like to read simply haven’t discovered the type of books they like to read yet, so it’s important that when educators are teaching reading that they give children a chance to select their own reading as well.