Guided Reading Article

The article I found on guided reading for this week is titld Guided Reading with Emergent Readers by Jeanne Clidas. I found this article to be extremely insightful and informational. It will be one of those articles I will hang on to for my professional library in the future. It discusses what exactly is guided reading, how guided reading supports beginning or emergent readers, when children are ready for guided reading, as well as how we can support ESL students as they begin reading. One of the parts of this article I liked best is that it gave characteristics of books at the emergent level. I feel that this is very important when teaching younger children as I implement guided reading and begin to collect children's books for my classroom. By choosing great literature to use in guided reading you can support your students even more as they learn to read. Clidas mentioned that "guided reading should be thought of as a time for children to practice what they know about reading in front of a supportive person." She goes on to say that the teacher's role is to help students develop effective strategies which can be used to comprehend what they read and to solve problems for themselves. She states that the children should be doing majority of the work while the teacher guides and encourages their efforts. Have you ever seen guided reading implemented in your classroom? If so, do the students and the teacher take on a similar role as the article mentioned?
I highly recommend this article so I have copy and pasted the link to it below. Enjoy!
http://www.leeandlow.com/images/pdfs/intro.pdf