Guided Reading 101 (K-5)

This online course is designed for K-5 teachers who wish to explore the guided reading strategy in detail. Teachers will be introduced to the basic framework of guided reading and will learn a variety of strategies to meet all their students’ needs in the “building block” areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Teachers will learn about the importance of using data to find their students’ reading levels and how to determine the readability of leveled text so that students can be appropriately “matched” to high-interest books. The course takes teachers through the entire process of guided reading, including introducing the text, reading the text, discussing the text, teaching the focus mini-lesson, incorporating word work, and responding to reading by writing. Additional topics include how to organize a shared guided reading library, how to incorporate writing into the guided reading framework, how to further differentiate guided reading instruction for English language learners, and how to extend guided reading beyond the classroom. By the end of this course, teachers will feel more confident in impelementing this best practice into their teaching repertoire.