The Jan Plan, Part II

I'm back for another post about guided reading using Jan Richardson's book, The Next Step in Guided Reading. Her format really does help you get the most out of that short chunk of guided reading time. Today, I'm going to show you what an emergent reading lesson looks like. This is the format followed for levels A-C. The instructional focus will change depending on students' needs, but the overall organization and procedures will be the same.

Part One-Sight word review

We begin the lesson by doing a quick review of three previously taught sight words. Each time the students write a word correctly, I mark it down on a recording sheet. After the student has written the word independently several times, I am confident that it is a known word. You get good at figuring out who knows the word and who is averting their eyes to try to look at someone else's board. :)

Part Two- Book introduction and reading

Next, I introduce the story and any new vocabulary the students will need to know. We may quickly preview the story and make predictions, but we don't spend a ton of time before we get down to the nitty gritty business of reading. This is where it looks like your usual guided reading lesson. The students quietly read the story while I monitor and support if needed. I usually take a running record on a student at this time.

Before, during, and after reading, I encourage students to use our strategies to figure out unknown words. After reading, we discuss the strategies the students used and talk about any tricky parts we encountered. If there is enough meat to the story to discuss it, we will talk about the events and our connections to the story.

Part Three-Teach one new sight word

I ALWAYS have the students build a new sight word with magnetic letters. We may also play "mix and fix" where the students mix up the letters and put it back together, saying the letters in order each time. We also write the word on a white board and sometimes play "what's missing?" where I simply write the word on a white board missing one or two letters and the students have to fill them in.

I store the magnetic letters needed for the sight word in these little disposable Glad containers. They stack neatly and are the perfect size.

Part Four- word study

Finally, we do some quick word work. It may be a sort, Elkonin boxes, or making words with magnetic letters.

I keep the letters needed to make the day's word in these cups from the grocery store. Having a different container keeps me from mixing up the letters.

And that's the end of the emergent guided reading lesson...BUT WAIT! This is a two-day plan! On the second day, the students practice sight words, reread the story, and practice the new sight word much like day 1. But in place of word study, we do guided writing in their guided writing journals. This is usually a sentence that I dictate to the students.

I use these journals that I created, because I felt that giving the students a small place to draw a QUICK picture helps them to remember what was written...but a few blank sheets of paper stapled into a book is all you really need.

There sure is a lot of wood grain going on in these guided reading posts! I hope you found them useful. If you are not familiar with Jan Richardson's book The Next Step in Guided Reading, I highly recommend you check it out! Her website is also filled with great information and downloads, which you can get here.

One last thing... I have created some resources for getting started with guided reading in your classroom. I call them Guided Reading Essentials, and they can be found at my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you are interested! The guided writing notebooks are a FREEBIE! Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. :)