Guided Reading: Reading, Thinking, and Talking Together in Small Group (K–2, 3–5)

Supporting our learners to orchestrate the skills, strategies, and thinking work involved in reading begins with our own understandings of the development of the reading process. This session will focus on understanding reading behaviors across a continuum of reading stages, text selection to support children’s development of these reading behaviors, and lesson design that enables learners to co-construct meaning through talking with others.

Professional development on Guided Reading focuses on three key elements: the readers, the books, and the lesson. Using our Reading Development Chart (Reggett & Crouch, 2018) to ground the discussion, this session supports teachers to view reading understandings, behaviors, and attitudes along a continuum of development. Exploring texts for supports and challenges supports a teacher to understand the relationship between quality text development and the work of developing readers. Lesson design that offers teachers support yet flexibility as they create lessons with readers in mind is essential to teacher efficacy.

Professional development for Guided Reading through Okapi is about deepening a teacher’s knowledge base for making decisions that matter for their readers to create the strongest guided reading experiences possible.

Materials that may be emphasized:
Flying Start to Literacy™, WorldWise™, Explorations®