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What is guided reading?
Guided reading is a component of our Responsive Literacy Framework.  Our framework offers support for generating a literacy program by highlighting promising practices, assessment and planning tools to support the diverse needs of our learners and includes a balance of instructional approaches through ongoing, formative assessments that respond to individual needs. Guided reading is where students in small groups individually read a text that we have selected and we provide instruction to support the students with their reading skills and strategies. 

Why guided reading? 
Guided reading supports readers in expanding reading processes and competencies and provides a context for responsive teaching.  It allows students to engage in a variety of challenging texts and enables teachers to support them as they interact with more difficult texts and helps students understand the thinking and meaning we make while reading.  In the homogenous small groups, are able to work on similar challenges together and further develop toward independent reading.  The students have the opportunity to build vocabulary by highlighting key words together and work on finding the main idea, make inferences and connections.  The group is able to examine shorter texts more in depth and extract key information, generate, evaluate and refine ideas, plus express and present information and justify and defend decisions.  
For more information on Guided Reading check out the DRC
Literature Circle books are available for both Guided and Independent reading.  Look into the DRC for more.
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How do I use guided reading in my classroom? 
Create a small group of students who are at a similar point in their reading development and determine common challenges and learning opportunities.  The activities may include, phonics work, sequencing, comprehension or interpreting, analyzing and evaluating - whatever you deem as a area of focus for the group. The generation of these small groups are based on our observations and conversations as we discover the individual needs of our readers.   Select a text you want to use and organize multiple copies and have the students read independently.  As the group reads through the text, the students respond to the text and we observe reading behaviours, prompt and reinforce problem solving and oral, listening and reading strategies. Invite your learners to stop and discuss meaning and generate ideas around the text.  We can model and promote reading strategies as students reflect on their progress. 

Useful Videos

Please have a look at the videos of guided reading below to help with the planning of the learning experiences.