Appendices

Appendix 3

Guided Reading and Thinking

During this reading strategy, students' comprehension of a selection is guided and developed by teacher questions. The focus is on the use of context to predict meaning. As students gain practice and confidence in using this strategy, the teacher will monitor or confer with small groups or individual readers.

Purposes

• to enable students to establish and verbalize purposes for reading
• to develop students' story sense (story sequence or story grammar), and the practice of monitoring for meaning while reading
• to encourage students to use past experiences, their knowledge of language and context clues to aid comprehension
• to develop independent reading skills

Procedure

Reading Narrative Text:
• Have students predict story contents using the title and cover illustration or information.
• List and display predictions (a story grid or outline as described in story grammar may be useful to organize ideas and story elements).
• Read, or have students read, introductory pages.
• Ask students for their perceptions of what has occurred and what will follow.
• Continue to read portions of the text, stopping to compare and verify predictions.
• Record students' inferences and predictions for the story conclusion.
• Complete the selection.
• Compare students' predictions to story events.
• Relate the story to students' personal experiences and to other stories.
Reading Expository Text:
• Prior to reading, list or make a webbing of what students know about the topic.
• Brainstorm and list questions students have about the topic.
• Have students view the resource to identify possible clues to the content.
• Focus students' attention on the table of contents, illustrations, headings and sub-headings.
• Encourage students to predict the content.
• Read, or have students read, portions of the text.
• Have students recall significant details.
• Compare students' predictions to the information contained in the text.
• Add new ideas and understandings to students' initial list or webbing.

Assessment

• Use reading conferences to assess students' application of this strategy during independent reading.
• Assess students' abilities to comprehend narrative and expository text.

What Students Learn about Language and Literature

• To construct meaning from print, efficient readers:
  • reflect upon and question illustrations and text
  • predict or hypothesize possible answers, events or information, basing inferences and predictions on context, previous reading experiences, their sense of story and knowledge of the topic
  • read to validate predictions
  • form conclusions.
• Expository and narrative reading materials differ in format and purpose.
• Most narratives follow a predictable pattern.

Adaptations and Applications

• Students could write their own story endings using the list of predicted conclusions.
• Students could use a self-directed reading and thinking strategy during independent reading.
• Guided reading and thinking can be incorporated with:
  • Literature study
  • Story grammar
  • Story mapping
  • Storytelling