Guided Reading is All About...
What about decoding and fluency?
While reading a "just right" text during guided reading, students will practice decoding and fluency skills. Many of the texts will be revisited several times. The method of repeated reading (Samuels, 1979) is one of the best strategies for becoming a fluent reader.
Students will also get fluency practice during the first three to five minutes of the group session. We call this the "warm up" part of the lesson. You can have students reread old favorites as a repeated reading or practice making sentences with sight words. You may also use poems and songs to reinforce decoding and build high frequency word knowledge.
After the "warm up," the students are introduced to the text and given a purpose for reading. Since the goal is using the target comprehension skill, we remind students of the mental process needed. We do not pre-teach vocabulary words unless there isn't any context for the students to use to figure out the meaning and/or pronunciation. Students should also always be asked to make predictions before reading.
As students are reading the text, they will have opportunities for decoding practice. This comes into play when students are monitoring and adjusting for comprehension. When a student comes to an unknown word, they should use a "fix up" strategy. If the student struggles to use the strategy, the teacher provides a prompt by calling attention to meaning, syntax, or visual information. It may also be appropriate to have two to four minutes of "word work" practice before dismissing students from the group.