During the Covid-19 lockdown I participated in several online webinars, one of which was a session run by guided reading expert Hilton Ayrey. I have followed Hilton Ayrey since my first years of teaching, as I was attracted to his Story Bytes series of guided reading texts. These texts consist of 4-5 paragraphs of writing which are differentiated by the addition or substitution of vocabulary in varying degrees of complexity, hence the same topic or story can be read at a range of different reading abilities.
At the beginning of the webinar, Hilton prefaced the session by stating that he was not sure whether this online approach would be suitable for all teachers, and that he had in fact received feedback already from teachers who felt trying to hold a guided reading session online during this lockdown period would be too difficult for many students. As he was also producing content in a time where the situation may change with little notice, he acknowledged that by the time he had perfected a lesson plan, the lockdown may be over and it may be business as usual, therefore he asked us to assess whether this system could be used by a Teacher Aide in class instead.
The first thing he covered was the administration that needs to be done before a lesson can begin: sharing the materials before students arrive by having the text clickable in a link, establish protocols such as having microphones on mute, having hands up signals etc, the sort of classroom management most teachers would be familiar with but in a virtual environment. The four paragraphs of text were displayed on a powerpoint which presented one paragraph at a time, and then one sentence each from that paragraph on the next few slides to focus the group clearly on the text at hand.
Hilton’s guided teaching model is 20% of time spent explicitly teaching, and 80% of time spent on independent practice, however it is not a straight 20% front-loading, 80% go-away-and-practice, as that ratio first implies. Rather it is a rotation of explain, model and guided practice throughout the lesson. Hilton will ask for roadblocks- unfamilar words which may impede comprehension, and then offers students a chance to clear those roadblock themselves or offer a solution to another’s problem. Ayrey says it is important that not a lot of time is spent on clearing roadblocks as this can eat into lesson time- one attempt from the student or one attempt from a peer, and then the teacher can give the information so that the reading can progress.
The lesson sequence is broken into four steps: 1. Teacher modelling, 2. Student reading practice, 3. Explanation of what has been read, 4. Bridge back to the story. The goal is to get through one paragraph in six minutes, so pace is important. One benefit of doing online guided reading is that as a teacher you do not need to worry about keeping the rest of the class on-task while working with a group!
After going through the learning intention and success criteria, we began with a reading of a sentence: The duck landed on the water. Hilton pointed out that the Explain part of the lesson sequence needs the student to demonstrate that they really understand what the text means, not merely retell it. In this case, restating “the duck landed on the water” would not constitute a good explanation, students need to make reference to the fact that the duck had been flying and that it had come to rest on the surface of either a lake or a river, not a puddle as in reality this would be too shallow for a duck to land on.
We then began reading the first paragraph of the text in our heads, Hilton read the first line aloud and modelled how to break down the sentence and explain what each bit meant using the phrase “I think that…” We then had to decide whether we thought he had understood the text or not. We then read a sentence aloud together and one of us offered an explanation of what it meant. We then each took turns reading a sentence aloud and explaining what it meant using “I think that…” There was no interjections from other students or the teacher at this stage.
At the end of the paragraph the teacher may ask whether there are any roadblocks, difficult words or idioms that a reader may not be familiar with. The reader is offered a chance to guess at the meaning, before it is opened up to the rest of the group to try. Hilton drew attention to this part, only one peer should be given a chance to clear the road block, any more and the time spent on it is too long. Roadblocks should be cleared ideally within 20-30 seconds as the purpose of the reading is not to spend a long time teasing out the meanings of words.
Finally, once all the sentences in the paragraph have been read, Hilton selected a sentence from the paragraph and gave us two minutes to convincingly explain what it was about, with points being given either to us as a group or to him if we couldn’t explain- a good strategy for engaging participation. He broke the sentence down into small chunks and we explained each bit until we had successfully explained the entire sentence. For instance, the sentence “Usually he would wade in and his heavy body would sink to the bottom of the river” would be broken into parts “Usually he would wade in”, “wade in”, “His heavy body would sink”, “Would sink to the bottom”. After we had explained the paragraph, Hilton asked for a prediction about what would happen next to bridge the discussing back to the story again.
At the end of the session he asked us what we had been learning to do (Unpacking sentences), why we had been doing that (training our brain), whether we felt we had become better at this, and how we knew that we had become better. As a class teacher I am aware of the benefits of reflection on learning and self-assessment, and in future I would make more of an effort to include a reflection and self-assessment like this at the end of a guided reading session.
Learning Through Teaching 