More about Middle-School Guided Reading

I was able to observe another middle-school (7th grade) teacher using the Guided Reading structure, and we talked a little bit about methods that are effective for this age group.  

I should point out at this point that I don't want to pretend to be the best at using Guided Reading.  There are things about the strategy that I don't like, and that I struggle with.  It takes a significant amount of prep time to start, for example.  If it weren't so effective, and if the kids didn't enjoy the change so much, I might not use it at all.  But those are powerful motivators for teachers.  I also struggle with re-using old curriculum.  I like to try new things, sometimes to a fault, and I sometimes abandon old ideas (like old stations) merely because I think I have a better idea.  So, I end up experimenting a lot, instead of using "tried-and-true" stations.  

I'm thinking through the last part of the year, now that we're in "testing mode."  I think that Guided Reading is a nice, engaging strategy for the "home stretch," and there are a lot of fun things kids can do as part of this that are still effective and yield results.  But I also really want to push more writing.  I haven't done enough Writing Workshop this year, and I'm hoping to play around with ways to combine the two.  

So, as I dig through my professional resources (I found a book by Katie Wood Ray that I'm going to look through for new perspectives on workshop), and I refine some of the things that I've already done, I'm looking at how to make the most of Guided Reading.  

The teacher that I observed didn't do traditional "rotations."  Instead of a "you go here at this time" rotation, as I've seen in elementary school, or the "get your materials and return to your seat to work on this at this time" structure that I usually use, she establishes the stations and then allows kids to work on the various stations at their own pace.  The only timed and structured station, really, is the teacher station.  There is a fixed group of kids ("fixed" as in set by the teacher, according to a specific purpose) who meet with the teacher for a reasonable chunk of time (15-20 minutes or so), then are dismissed to continue working on stations.  

There are positives and negatives to this way of doing things:

POSITIVE - 

• Kids have more flexibility to follow their interests and work at their own pace.  (More choice) 
• Less troublesome if kids are absent or pulled out for something
• Less set-up time for rotations and stations (don't have to create a huge, detailed chart and keep posted)
• Can create an incentive to finish early through engaging "early finishers" activities, like games or "free time" activities

NEGATIVE - 

• Need to monitor stations and "sharing" to avoid crowding or "I was there first!" disputes
• Less immediate accountability for off-task or misbehaving kids who might not want to do all of the stations 
• Less control over personality clashes and kids who might work better away from each other

Most of the negatives involve management issues.  It's much easier to lose control in this kind of an environment, so a teacher who attempts this approach will have to feel comfortable trusting his/her kids with this kind of freedom.  It allows choice, but it also might allow conflict over popular choices.  It would also take some teaching and some control over conflict resolution.  During the observation I was doing, for example, some kids were watching videos on a portable DVD player.  There just wasn't enough room for everyone to watch at the same time.  Similarly, there was an iPod with a song and some headphones that kids were supposed to listen to (and summarize).  There just weren't enough headphones for everyone to do this at once.  It helps when all the stations are reasonably "cool," of course.  But I can still see that it takes teaching - or some fabulous students, though I think some teaching would have to be involved - to get kids to understand this kind of procedure.  

I like this format, and I like the kind of feedback it provides me about the stations and about the students.  I think that kids enjoy having a say in what goes into the stations, and I really think it might be fun to invite kids to contribute to a "music" station, for example, since I know so little about contemporary music (though I'm trying).  

I'll be thinking about this over the next few weeks, and I'll try to post some more about how I'm melding (love the Star Trek reference) Writing Workshop and Guided Reading.  

Middle-School Guided Reading

I'm going to talk a little bit about Guided Reading, an old teaching model that has been used for years in elementary classrooms.  The basic premise is homogeneous groups, working with the teacher, while the rest of the class is working in "stations."

Here are some links to pages about Guided Reading:

Short Summary of the Strategy from Saskatoon Public Schools

Scholastic Publication on Research base for Guided Reading

Overview of Guided Reading from Michigan State University

Here's a quote from the last link (Michigan State University):

What are the Other Students Doing While I’m Teaching Reading Groups? 

There are a variety of options. Students could be reading independently or in small Literature Circles / Book Clubs. Or they could be working in center activities related to reading. Whichever you choose, it is a routine that needs to be taught well in the first few weeks of school in order to be successful.

To me, this sounds a lot like "As long as they're busy, it doesn't much matter."  This is the biggest criticism of Guided Reading as a whole, in my opinion.  I don't think that most teachers do this, but it would be easy to just give the rest of the class busy-work, and focus on the "teacher group."  As long as students were diligently working on the "busy-work," it wouldn't seem to matter much, would it?

There are criteria to keep in mind for stations to be effective:

1. Station work has to be independent work, so it can't be new material or too challenging, or students won't be able to do it without interrupting the teacher (which is bad).  So keep it relatively easy.
2. The work must also be engaging enough to keep students focused for the duration of the station, usually at least 20 minutes.  
3. Some assessment of this station work must occur, and must occur consistently, or students won't put any serious effort into completing it.  

The challenge with middle school students is that they are both less patient and more perceptive than typical elementary students with work that lacks a clear sense of purpose.  For example, unless you have built value into silent reading (or if you have a class full of focused readers, a rarity in middle school), you probably won't be able to get a group of students to focus on reading independently for any length of time with so much else going on in the room, and without the direct observation of the teacher.  Designing a good station can take a lot of time, and it often produces material from the students that requires additional time to read and respond to.  

So, in a middle-school setting, what do you need to do to make this work?  Here are some things that my co-workers and I have found (or have learned from others):

• Create a consistent structure for students to use in the station, and follow it for a long time.  For example, use a Making Words book for a vocabulary station, and have students complete a vocabulary activity several times over several weeks using different words.  
• Pre-teach station activities as much as you can, so that students are comfortable with the work before they attempt to complete it in the stations.  
• Students often enjoy the stations if there is a chance to work with peers, and adding even a small element of "fun" increases the effectiveness enormously.  Having students analyze picture books, for example, can be very effective.  
• Grade only one station, but don't let students know in advance which station will be graded.  
• Practice the procedures as much as possible early in the school year, and follow them consistently.  Follow the same procedure for grouping and rotations.  Groups should change (flexible grouping is important), but the way that you tell the students what group they are in and what they are doing should stay the same.  I also use a timer and a signal to announce a change in rotation (a $5 Wal-Mart bicycle horn).  
• Make sure that you have a procedure for early finishers.  
• Be creative with the stations.  Nonfiction reading, for example, can be a very cool station.  We had success with material from our science books that we never managed to get to - the books were readily available, familiar to the students, and reasonably engaging.  

I'm sure I will think of more to say here, and I'm not pretending to be an expert on guided reading in middle school.  But if you're curious or considering using it in the upper grades, it's a powerful instructional strategy when used well.  It just takes a lot of prep time.