Setting Up Guided Reading: The Lazy Teacher's Guide

Have a more organized and effective guided reading block in 10 minutes!

If you're like me, you kinda felt like this when you first thought about how to use technology to enhance your classroom...

Guided Reading is a fantastic way to provide students with differentiated instruction that is on their level and will bring about positive results in reading. But it is absolutely a pain to get everything together. This guide will show you how to organize things so that your guided reading groups are high quality and low maintenance, so you can focus on teaching your kids, not organizing materials. You can use this model for any kind of guided and differentiated instruction.

Organization:

Organize your resources into different folders. Digital resources allow you to keep the hefty paperwork that is Guided Reading to a minimum. Use a Google Site and create a launching pad for all of your Guided Reading materials and resources.

Click the link below to check out my Sample Guided Reading Launch Page! This sample mirrors the launch that I use - and I included some of the resources I use for guided reading for you to peruse!

Sample Guided Reading Launch

Start by organizing your groups and your schedule to determine what kinds of resources you need and how often you'll need them. 

Resources:

Finding quality resources for Guided reading is fortunately pretty easy. Check out these two resources page. The first one is my sample page with a few resources for you to use. The next page is the Jan Richardson resources bank. If you're looking for a fantastic model for guided reading, check out Jan Richardson's Next Steps In Guided Reading. 

Guided Reading Resources

Jan Richardson Guided Reading Resources

Jan Richardson includes lesson planning templates. I use a 5-day planning template since I have several groups that I meet with each week. It helps limit the paperwork and better organize my own pacing. 

Every level of guided reader is going to need a different kind of lesson, so carefully organize your resources and plans based on the needs of your readers.

Lesson Planning:

Two basic lesson plan templates to use for your transitional and fluent reading groups (3-6)

Assessment:

Create a Google Form to take anecdotal notes. This allows you to submit a record for each child every time you have something to input, and automatically fills a spreadsheet for you. If you have several teachers or students from several classes, you can share the results sheets with those teachers so they can automatically find data without hunting you down or waiting for you to send them a paper.

Take on guided reading one step at a time. The more practice you get with each section, the easier it'll become. Soon you can create a quality guided reading workshop  and have all of your resources readily available!