So what’s the deal with round-robin during guided reading?
You choose students to take turns reading aloud. When one student finished reading aloud, maybe you stop him or her and have a teaching point or a conversation.
Then you move to the next student. Sometimes this happens during guided reading. Sometimes teachers use this as a whole-class reading strategy.
They may call on students randomly, move in a predictable pattern, or ask students to “popcorn read”, where a student reads a piece, stops wherever they want, and then calls on the next student to read.
1. They say kids like to read aloud.
2. They say kids like to help each other.
3. They don’t know any other way to do it.
Here’s what you do:
1. You do your normal beginning-of-lesson things. You introduce the strategy you’re going to work on (which is the point of guided reading – introducing a strategy and having students practice it with your guidance). You introduce the text and background knowledge, etc.
2. You introduce their purpose for reading (I use a purpose question that will require them to respond using the strategy they’re practicing. For example, if we’re practicing inferences, they have to make an inference to answer the question.) If they’re only reading a certain amount of pages, have them put a sticky note marked STOP on the page you want them to stop on.
3. You ask all students to start reading. You can start them at the same time in the upper grades, because they are able to read to themselves. For some groups, you can have them whisper read. Just teacher judgment, there. For primary grades, many students read aloud. If you’re worried about students listening to each other, stagger start them so they start reading at different times. Start one, wait till they read a few sentences or so, start the next, wait, start the next. etc.
4. As students are reading to themselves, they’re supposed to be applying their strategy somehow, whether it’s decoding, comprehension, or fluency. Tap front of a student. This signals them to “turn up the volume” a little so you can “listen in” wherever they are. They don’t go back to the beginning or the beginning of a paragraph or anything. They just turn up the volume. Pause them, and prompt them to apply the strategy. You may prompt them in decoding if you see there’s an issue. Listen to them read again. Prompt again. Move on to a different student.
5. Listen in to each student at some point during the lesson, prompting and discussing. I take anecdotal notes in order to plan my next lesson(s).
6. As they finish reading the text (or the chunk of text), they answer the purpose question, and then go back and reread. They NEVER just sit there.
7. After everybody’s “done”, we have a discussion about their strategy use and the purpose question.
Then we’re done, unless I prompt them to apply this strategy to their independent reading.
I know that was a lot of information, but I really hope it’s helpful. Got questions? Let me know!
P.S.
For more on lesson planning, for guided reading, check out my post where I break it down!
