Guided Reading in Kindergarten

Hi!  It's Kay again from Sommer's Lion Pride with some Kindergarten guided reading tips!

I am currently rereading The Next Step in Guided Reading by Jan Richardson to better prepare and plan for the year.  Here are some guided reading tips to get it up and running in your Kindergarten classroom, my take-aways from Chapter 1, which is all about preparation.

#1 - First and foremost, don’t rush it!

Before you can begin to pull small groups to your table for specific lessons, you have to make sure that your class is able to work independently for 30-60 minutes.  You will also need to introduce students to all of your literacy centers.  And that takes time.

We all know how our Kinders come into the classroom on that first day of school!  These little ones just aren’t ready to work independently yet for any length of time.  So ease into it!

Jan Richardson says that you should spend 6 weeks teaching routines and procedures.  During this time, you will gradually release responsibility to the students, as they work their way up to more sustained independent work.

#2 - Map out a plan to introduce your literacy centers to your students.

In the book you will find a week-by-week plan for introducing literacy centers during the first 6 weeks.  Jan recommends that you pull 1 group at a time, show them how to use a center, and give them a chance to work with it, while the rest of the class is working in groups with an activity that requires little direction from teacher.

As you introduce the literacy centers, don’t forget to teach your students all of the procedures and routines that go with each literacy activity.

#3 - Decide how you will manage centers during guided reading.

Here are some questions that you need to answer before getting started.

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How will you group your students?  (I will explore this more in my next blog post on Sommer's Lion Pride.)

Do students choose their own literacy activities?  Or are they assigned?  Will you have a chart of some kind that shows that?

What signal will you use when it is time to stop working, clean up, and rotate?  What do the students do when you give them the signal?

How do students move to the centers?  How do they access the materials for the centers?  Who is in charge of getting the materials?

What is the expected noise level during literacy centers/guided reading?

What should students do when they encounter a problem?

What happens if a students is being disruptive and not working cooperatively?

How will you organize your guided reading materials?

#4 - Here are some ideas for literacy centers at the beginning of the year.

I try to keep it simple!  Lots of opportunities to work with letters!

#5 - Use a timer!

This will keep you on schedule.  I have a few timers around my classroom so that I can always find one to set!