Activities for Guided Reading
The day came! My principal told me we had to implement guided reading groups! I started thinking about activities for guided reading and how I could set up rotations. To be honest, I loved the idea of guided reading groups but after years of experience and trying stations in my classroom multiple times, I never could get any type of station time to work well for me. So honestly, when it was a requirement for my school I was a little nervous but very excited at the same time. This would force me to find a way to make it work.
Over the summer I did a lot of research and wanted/needed to find a way to make it work in my classroom. I am a bit of a “planner” and want all of my students to be working hard all the time. I want them to be able to talk some but at the same time, I want them to be talking about what they are supposed to be talking about.
If you are a visual learner and want to skip the read and go straight to the VIDEO it is at the BOTTOM. 🙂
Guided Reading Set-Up that Failed Me!
I have always set up my groups for stations or rotations in groups of 4. I work really hard to manage the class, constantly reward groups that are on task, but I still always seem to have groups that I feel like just can’t handle it. I am always wondering if my activities for stations are wrong. Well, I figured out my two mistakes!
- My groups needed to be with a partner, instead of being in groups.
2. My groups needed explicit step by step directions that stated my expectation for their noise level and the directions for their task I wanted to them to complete.
So this year I put my students in partners (max group of 3). I also put easy to follow, step by step directions, and my expectation for their noise level on the top of my basket for each rotation.
Activities I decided to use for Guided Reading
Honestly, a lot of people like to print out games and things for students to use. I just do not want to manage cutting out materials and a lot of prep on the weekends to implement this. So I decided for a lot of Reading and Responses, AR testing, Stations that are meaningful but yet do not require much prep or any at all.
What was my plan to show the students their station or rotation?
This is where the most amazing thing came to mind! What if I didn’t have to name my group a color or a letter (because kids always figure it out). What if I didn’t have to use an editable PowerPoint to fill in my students’ names on each slide? What if there was a way to type in my group names one time and they auto-fill into the stations/rotations they would go to each day? What if making guided reading rotations could really be that easy?
Well, after searching and searching and searching, I could not find anything where I could type the names in less than 5 minutes and automatically have a guided reading rotation filled. I could not find anything like this, nor could I find anything that had students in partners, rather than groups. So I created it!! Look at this amazing video that shows you how to type in your groups and have a station rotation schedule printed out for you in less than 5 minutes.
Where can I get this Guided Reading Rotation?
Well, it depends on if you are planning on doing guided reading groups 4 days a week, or 5 days a week. Honestly, I use both, but I prefer to do it 5 days a week. I use the 4 days a week for weeks that include holidays, no school, early release, or even a bunch of testing on one of the days.
Just click the picture to go check these out. There is a picture for the 4 days a week product, a 5 days a week product, and a picture of the bundle in case you want to use both like I do and would like a 20% discount.
In addition to these, I want to create this in different “themes”. Do you have a theme and would like this to match your classroom? Just click here to type in a theme that you would like to see added to my store.
A few important things to know…
There are a few things about this resource you should know. First, this rotation of 8 stations was carefully thought out. I have purposely put groups into rotations that make sense. If you use this resource, you will be able to hit all of your guided reading groups at least 3 times a week. You will work with your lowest group 5 times a week. The second-lowest group will see you 4 times a week. Lastly, your two highest groups will work with you 3 times a week.
I also created this resource so that you can change the names of your rotations/ stations to fit your classroom needs. Although I think I love these guided reading rotations because of my choice of guided reading activities. The only thing I will remind you of here is to be careful what you change them to because some of the groups will go to a rotation more than once a week, but all of this is listed in great detail.
