Round Robin Reading / Guided Reading – Is there a difference?
Refining the practice of guided reading is a priority goal in many of the schools I am working in. Understandings of guided reading vary enormously, as does the instruction around guided reading from classroom to classroom.
What it is . . .
- an opportunity for every student to independently problem solve the text or section of the text.
What it isn’t . . .
- a group of students turn taking the reading of a text or section of the text through shared, round robin, choral, echo or buddied reads.
What is the difference between guided reading and round robin reading?
Guided reading is a powerful instructional approach to teaching reading; round robin is not. Research suggests that guided reading promotes a high level of reading growth; round robin does not.
Guided reading can include some choral reading in order to build fluency or improve prosody. This would occur after the problem solving when the text or section of the text is revisited.
How does this happen?
In guided reading, the students read a text specifically selected for their guided reading group. The teacher chooses a text based on what readers in a group know, what they need to know, their interests and the gradient of difficulty of the text.
In order to support and extend strategic problem solving, the teacher identifies words, groups of words or ideas which are challenging to students and provides suitable supports to make the challenging, accessible.
Students read silently as the teacher listens to individuals and gathers reading data which informs future learning. Conversations around the text consolidate and deepen student understandings. The teacher scaffolds questions and responses in order to build high level inferential and evaluative thinking and supports students to validate their thinking in the text.
In order to improve reading data we must do the following:
- know what to teach (analyse and interpret formal and informal data and record observations of student reading behaviour)
- use read aloud and shared reading to rigorously deliver instruction around problem solving behaviour (What will my students know and know how to do by the end of my lesson? How will I know?)
- provide opportunities for students to transfer and generalise this knowledge across a range of texts and text types and requiring a good amount of solving (guided reading)
- provide opportunities for self regulatory reading behaviour to develop (read easy/familiar texts to promote rapid solving)