How I Made Guided Reading Work In Upper Elementary

There’s no arguing that guided reading is a time-tested, research-proven instructional method. Whether you’re excited to try it in your classroom or your district (like mine) is mandating it, there’s a lot to think about. How will you organize and schedule your guided reading time? What do you teach during lessons? Where can you find appropriately leveled texts? What’s the rest of the class doing?Today I want to share how I organize and schedule my guided reading groups. I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I have found something that works for my class, and lets me maintain my sanity.

Every teacher hates loves a brand new district mandate the week before school starts. Two years ago, we were told 2 days before school started that we are all required to do guided reading groups 5 days a week, for 60 minutes, with every student, no exceptions. I’ve done small groups in the past during reading and math, but I’ve never really done true guided reading, nor have I been trained on it, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it.

After teaching this way for 2 years, I’ve found lots of reasons to like guided reading, and a few reasons not to. I may never be the teacher who loooooves guided reading, but I have found a way to make it work in my upper elementary classroom.

We are required to have guided reading for 60 minutes every day, so I meet with three groups of students for 20 minutes each. My class is pretty small right now, so I have four total groups of 5-6 students each. For a while, I had 5 groups with varying numbers of students.

If you’re interested in more detailed schedule info and my schedule for other numbers of groups, you can find them in my Getting Started with Guided Reading Guide on TPT. You’ll also find an editable PowerPoint you can use for your reading rotations. I’ve already filled in the schedule I use, so it’ll be quick and easy for you to adapt, especially if you use the same schedule.

The last thing we want kids to do is figure out that the yellow group is always the low readers, and the green group is always the high ones. To keep this from happening, I let each group name themselves. Right now, I have the Avatars, Bulldogs, Chameleons, and Dolphins. Choosing their own names helps the group learn to work cooperatively, and builds unity, but it also provides a group name that has nothing to do with their reading level… that they know of.

Notice how their names start with ABCD? That’s how I keep track of the groups in my plans. Every time I switch up the groups, I choose a new set of letters, so the next set might be EFGH or JKLM. This way, most students won’t notice the pattern, but it’s still easy for me to remember for planning. Sneaky, right?!

I set up my reading rotations like this: