Guided Reading versus Differentiated Instruction

1. Guided Reading versus Differentiated Instruction Michael C. McKenna University of Virginia Sharon Walpole University of Delaware

2. Let’s start by reviewing three approaches to differentiated reading instruction.

3. Approaches to Differentiation • Informal reading inventories By instructional level By fluency level By assessed needs

4. An IRI contains … • One or more sequences of graded word lists • One or more sequences of graded passages • Questions accompanying each passage

5. A B C PP P 1st 2 3 4 5 6 • • •

6. Approaches to Differentiation • Informal reading inventories • Traditional basal instruction • Groups move at same pace • Groups are all but permanent • Differentiation is in all areas • Parallel skill “strands” used By instructional level By fluency level By assessed needs

7. Approaches to Differentiation • Differentiation by leveled books • Decoding skills not a target • Fountas & Pinnell By instructional level By fluency level By assessed needs

8. Approaches to Differentiation • Assess for differentiation • Screening + diagnostic • Groups are temporary • Groups are flexible • Target areas of greatest need • Goal is “upward mobility” By instructional level By fluency level By assessed needs

9. To us, differentiation is … Walpole, S., & McKenna, M. C. (2007). Differentiated reading instruction: Strategies for the primary grades. New York: Guilford Press. “instruction that helps [children] accomplish challenging tasks that are just out of their reach” “instruction that targets a particular group of children’s needs directly and temporarily” “instruction that applies a developmental model”

10. Our Approach and Guided Reading: What’s the Difference? For a small group that is best served by a focus on fluency and comprehension, our approach looks very much like Guided Reading. And yet there are important differences. We will begin by making those differences clear.

13. Stage models of reading When children are acquiring literacy – developing the skills necessary for reading comprehension – they tend to move through stages in which their focus is very different. All along, during each stage, they are developing oral language skills.

14. Three Cuing Systems Decoding Syntactic Context Semantic Context A key distinction between our approach and Guided Reading is how teachers approach the use of context in recognizing words.

15. What is this word? What information did you use to identify it? read What does this word mean? What part of speech is it? How do you pronounce it?

16. Now try again. What new information did you use? That novel was a good read.

17. In actual reading, information within the word and information in context are available simultaneously. That novel was a good read. Proficient readers use all three cuing systems, to be sure, but they use context to decide among multiple meanings and multiple pronunciations. This occurs after decoding has allowed them to locate the word in memory.

18. So what should a teacher do when a child reads this sentence and hesitates before the last word? That novel was a good read. Ask the child to predict the word based on the previous context. or Ask the child to use decoding skills to determine the word’s pronunciation.

19. We want to move children to the point where they decode first and then use context to select the intended meaning of a word. We do not want to encourage them to predict the word from context and only “sample” its letters to the extent needed to confirm this prediction.

20. Three Cuing Systems Decoding Semantic Context Syntactic Context The three systems are not equally important. Context should become a child’s last resort – not the first!

28. A Stairway to Proficiency Vocabulary & Comprehension Fluency and Comprehension Word Recognition and Fluency PA and Word Recognition