Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students - Dr. Stirling ...

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ConclusionsThe use of Guided Reading strategies to teach students to infer and thinkcritically was just one of a multitude of approaches available. The researchers foundthat cross-curricular (Language Arts, Math, Social, Science, and Guidance)critical thinking questions, assignments, and tasks when combined with GuidedReading strategies, could indeed increase students’ critical thinking and inferringskills. In order to be successful, Guided Reading strategies needed to be taughtexplicitly and modeled by the teacher, and the students needed to be given lots ofopportunities to practice them.The way Guided Reading strategies were taught was very individual, depending onseveral factors:• the researcher (level of experience, comfort level, and focus of the teachingunits),• the students (their reading levels, interests, ability to work independently,and skills in cooperative group work),• classroom organization (what tasks the other students were doing, e.g.,keyboarding, Creative Writing or participating in another Guided Readinggroup),• the availability of materials (access to multiple copies and books at students’independent reading levels, and availability of computer accessible materials),• time (a period of at least 30 minutes, more than one day in a row or in ablock of several weeks, and enough time to download, print and assemblebooks), and• scheduling (overlapping of the timetable or flexible timetabling, particularlywhere teachers wanted to team or co-teach).It definitely took a lot of time to learn the theory behind Guided Reading and thewide variety of strategies available to implement it, as well as prepare the units andgather, create, and organize the necessary reading materials. The improvement instudent outcomes made the effort worthwhile.The researchers concluded that this action research project was just a beginningand they were very much in an awareness/exploration phase. They inferredthat their work with Guided Reading strategies would continue in 2007/2008, asthey shared what they had learned with other teachers and continued to apply thestrategies in their teaching practice. They expected to continue building on thisknowledge and applying it in the years ahead.28 RESEARCH REPORT: Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Grades Three, Four and Five
LimitationsThe research was not without limitations related to the administration of theinformal reading inventories, the timing of the school visit, as well as when and howGuided Reading strategies were taught. These limitations are described in moredetail below.1) The administration of The Critical Reading Inventory could have been betterhandled. Overall, the researchers were dissatisfied with how the passageswere administered. For instance, difficult questions were not repeated orrephrased, and foreign names were not told to the students. The passageswere much longer than the passages administered in the past, and theretelling portion of the inventory took more time. Students were not askedto expand on their retellings through further questions, such as “thenwhat happened?” or “what else?”2) The informal reading inventories were not used consistently. The researchersadministered passages from two different inventories (the Diagnostic ReadingProgram and the Basic Reading Inventory) and some used two types ofpassages (narrative and informational), but not consistently. The graphshelped the researchers to see how many passages had been administered,from what reading inventories, and the kinds of passages used.3) The visit to Sacred Heart School would have been better organized for thefall as planned rather than in January. This timing would have given theresearchers more practical information about teaching Guided Readingstrategies sooner.4) The Guided Reading Author Study in Grade 4 should have been completedbefore the Star test and the last informal reading inventories wereadministered at the end of May.5) Two of the researchers used a whole class approach to teaching GuidedReading strategies, while the other two used a small group approach.Multi-grade groupings were not attempted, given the number of siblings thatread at similar levels. Flexible groupings were also not used.6) Parent questionnaires were not part of the research, as originally planned.Parent reflections would have been a useful way to involve parents more intheir children’s reading and thinking.RESEARCH REPORT: Guided Reading Strategies to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Grades Three, Four and Five29
Page 7: IntroductionTHE RESEARCHERSFour tea
Page 10: Research QuestionHow can Guided Rea
Page 15 and 16: The researcher discovered that “[
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Page 21 and 22: THE TEACHING APPROACH IN GRADE FOUR
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Page 27 and 28: Summary of DataSTUDENT INTERVIEWSWH
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Page 31 and 32: Grade Five students read one inform
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Page 37 and 38: ReferencesAssessment ToolsAlberta E
Page 39 and 40: Ketch, A. (2005). Conversation the
Page 41 and 42: Appendix 2: Release FormRelease For
Page 43 and 44: Appendix 4: Student Work SamplesA)
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