Guided Reading Group Format

 The hours can pass so quickly when I start talking about school.  How does that happen?  The other night...it happened again!  My friend, Jenny, from Luckeyfrog's Lilypad and I had a late night talking school.  One of our topics...guided reading.  She wanted to know how I had my routine set up and persuaded me to share.  So...I will share.
But I must preface by saying that this routine did not just happen.  I have learned so much, tweaked so much because of long conversations with my teammate Karen.  We both make changes based on what we hear/see each other doing.  I've learned a lot.
Also...when I first starting doing Title I, I really had to keep to my time limit.  So I started timing myself for the different components of small group.  When the timer went off, I moved on to my next planned activity.  I did this for awhile just to get my pace down because it was so easy for me to get caught up on a phonics skills they didn't understand or sight words that they didn't know.  Setting a timer, really helped me get into better habits until I didn't need the timer anymore.

My guided reading groups are 30 minutes with anywhere from 4 to 7 kids.  This is the routine in a nutshell:
Phonological Awareness
Phonics (letters/sounds)
Phonics (nonsense/real words)
Sight Words
Leveled reader (reading strategies)
Comprehension

Now...let's dig deeper.

My groups start with behavior rubrics and expectations. (this takes about less than 1 minute)  My "I can" statements fit in during the "A" of this behavior rubric.

My instruction starts with Phonological Awareness.  (This changes during the second half of my year when I start doing some 1 minute fluency passages).  This can take different forms depending on the time of year, need, and skill I am working on for the week.  Here are some things we do: blending, segmenting, sorting sounds, changing nursery rhymes.

Here are some materials we use during this time.

Sometimes we use mirrors to show sounds.

Sorting by /sh/ and /th/ sounds

This is how they change nursery rhymes such as "he put in his arm and pulled out a farm."

Once phonological awareness is complete, we transition typically with something like this: "Good readers need to hear and say the correct sounds or else it changes the word.  So let's look at these letters."

Then we move right into a quick phonics lesson.  We start by going through letter cards.  I remind them that we need to draw the letters in the air, see the letter, and say the letter/sound.

Then we talk about how these sounds come together to make words.  We practice putting these sounds together with nonsense words.  I have explained and showed them that these nonsense words help us because they are parts of bigger words. (And I catch my firsties finding them in our bigger words like "bucket" and "picnic")

We practice some together first.

We look at how the nonsense words are part of "big" words.

Then  1 minute on their own. Click image for a freebie.

Once we complete our nonsense word practice, we look at the phonics skill for the week.  Many times I do this with a sheet where they each highlight the skill and blend the word together.  Sometimes we use one sheet and do this together.  And (occasionally) I do a word sort.

Example of an individual sheet

Example of one we do together

Example of a Venn Diagram word sort

Then we transition to sight words.  I say something like "we need to be able to sound out words quickly when we get stuck, but some words we need to just know by heart."  Then we flip through our Snapword cards.

Phrases with Snapwords we have learned

So far, I have used up about 15 minutes of my guided reading group.  We now transition into our leveled reader.  Typically I say something like this "Now we use all these skills to read a book, as well as, our reading strategies."  The strategies were created together and are posted in two places.

We are ready for the leveled reader.  I try to read two different leveled readers a week.  I start with a picture walk or a "guess the covered word" activity.

Guess the covered word

Once introduced, we read the text chorally or individually.  This is their time to use all the skills we have practiced and modeled.  It is also a time for me to taking running records.

During the last couple of minutes of the group, I try to throw in some comprehension.  I really like for my group to sequence the story because I think it is a great way to get them to reread the text but also think about "what makes sense."

We always end our group by discussing effort.  They rate themselves and then we discuss if they need to make changes for the next day.

Thanks for reading!  How does your group flow?