Fall 2005

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Guided Reading in French Immersion

A ROADMAP TO READING SUCCESS

Kathryn Maurer and Antoinette Spoor

Are our students reading enough?

That was the question we asked ourselves in the fall of 1998. At that time Kathryn was teaching grade one French Immersion, and Antoinette, the school’s Student Support Teacher, was documenting the results of the school district’s early intervention project for her Master’s degree. Our literature review indicated that young children learn to read by reading. The experts in the field were recommending 90 minutes of reading a day. We discovered that, unfortunately, our students weren’t spending enough time reading—certainly not 90 minutes every day. It is not surprising that our students weren’t achieving the level of proficiency that we wanted to see. We decided that we needed to refine our instructional practice.

From the beginning, we were fortunate to work under the leadership of Donna Klockars, our school district’s Early Literacy Coordinator. Her powerful vision and fervent belief that all children can learn to read provided the inspiration we needed. Donna’s English project results were noteworthy. How could we incorporate that success into the French Immersion setting? We decided that implementing Guided Reading would be one way to increase the time our students spent on reading, as well as providing us the opportunity to teach specific skills to small groups.

Although our experience relates primarily to working in French Immersion classes, the practical suggestions we offer are applicable to both English and French programs. We hope that you will modify our ideas according to your own needs and resources.

Where to begin? Start by observing outstanding colleagues in your district. Find out what works for them. We were impressed with the book collections in the classrooms we visited. We soon realized that we didn’t have enough suitable French books for emergent readers. Our students needed books that they could read with 95% accuracy. When we started our guided reading program, few publishers were producing books that were easy enough for French Immersion students in grade one. Many of the existing books appeared easy but they didn’t work for our beginning readers. They had been translated from English and the language presented was much too difficult for children with a limited French vocabulary. Undaunted, we wrote our own books! “Collection Sourire” is a series of 29 early emergent readers written specifically for the French Immersion population.

Fortunately there is much more choice from a variety of publishers today. We suggest that you request consultation copies before ordering so that you can read each title to decide if it will meet your needs. We only order the best readers in any series. In our experience, the publisher’s assigned levels are not always accurate. Take the time to level your own book collection.

In addition to ordering new books (always in sets of 6), we suggest pooling resources in your school to better meet the needs of the range of readers in any one class. Many schools use a book room to store materials for guided reading. Your money goes much further when you share materials. A title that the grade two teacher uses at the beginning of the year with an average group may be used by the grade one teacher at the end of the year or borrowed by the school support teacher for struggling readers. As simple as it sounds, the key to success is matching books to readers.

During our classroom visits we also noticed that our colleagues often provided guided reading instruction to a small group while the rest of the class worked at literacy centres. We found that our early primary students did not have the necessary language proficiency to work independently in French. The model we developed provides one adult for each group of readers. Yes, that means four adults in the class at the same time! Now, many of you would say: How can I organize this? So many adults, so many groups. We found there were many people one could enlist to help with the program including the principal, the learning support teacher, the school librarian, educational assistants, parent volunteers, intermediate or high school students, work experience students, and volunteers with community literacy organizations or service clubs. We provide a series of workshops followed by demonstration lessons and coaching to prepare our volunteers.

In addition to training volunteers, you will need to assess your students in order to divide them into homogenous groups. There are many assessment tools on the market, but for grade one students not yet reading, we recommend using a simple letter/sound assessment. Remember to keep your groups flexible as children develop their skills at different rates. You will find that you need to adjust your groups frequently throughout the year. Assign the most skilled teacher (often the classroom teacher) to work with the students requiring the highest level of support.

We suggest organizing your timetable at the beginning of September. Forty minute lessons four times a week are ideal, although we have often had to compromise with thirty minutes. You will need to ensure that library, physical education, computer lab time, assemblies and other interruptions such as the daily announcements are not scheduled during your guided reading time. With your principal’s support you will find that much of the school based scheduling can be planned to accommodate your program.

Something as simple as colour-coding can make life much easier! For each of your groups, we recommend a book basket and a file folder of the same colour. The weekly lesson plan, books to be introduced that week and the notebook to record running records are placed in the file folder which is kept in a hanging file. This makes it easier for teams coming in and out of your class “on the fly” to identify the resources required for the lesson they are teaching. The book basket contains familiar books and half size notebooks for high frequency word practice. Each group will also require a white board, dry erase markers and eraser for teaching specific skills and word work.

Do not let a lack of material stop you from starting your program. If district funds are limited, write your own books, or use reproducible readers’ theatre and take-home books, share books with colleagues, or borrow books from your school or public library. When requested, our parent advisory committee was pleased to provide ongoing financial support to further develop our collection of leveled books for guided reading.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could have started yesterday? However, we believe that taking the time to get your materials and volunteers in place before you start is well worth the effort. If this is your first time teaching Guided Reading, we recommend starting slowly. If you feel unsure, begin with one group at a time or teach fewer lessons per week.

You may find that some of your volunteers will enjoy their work so much that they will request to help you the following year. One of our volunteers has been working with us for seven years.


She keeps coming back because she loves participating in what she calls the miracle of children learning to read.
We hope our suggestions will help you implement guided reading in your class. Are OUR students reading more now than they did seven years ago? Yes, without a doubt! Are they reading for 90 minutes each day? Not yet, but we are getting closer to our goal and we feel confident that guided reading provides students with the necessary skills to engage in more meaningful reading throughout the day.

What is Guided Reading?
Guided reading is one of many forms of instruction used to teach reading in elementary school. It allows the teacher to guide a small group of students with common skills and needs through progressively more difficult material. The key to success is providing students with the right book at the right time—a book that is not too hard, not too easy but just right. To maximize student success, the teacher presents new and possibly challenging material from each text prior to reading. Students change groups throughout the year according to their needs. Guided reading is only one component of reading instruction used in many balanced literacy classrooms.

What are Running Records?
New Zealand’s Marie Clay developed running records to analyze students’ miscues in reading. The teacher records a student’s success, errors and self-corrections for a specific text. Running records are often used in a guided reading lesson to determine the appropriateness of the text, the student’s strategies and the use of self-correction. Future lessons can be planned based on information gained from this assessment.

For more information on guided reading and running records, please refer to:

Guided Reading
Good First Teaching for All Children
by Irene C. Fountas, Gay Su Pinnell
Heinemann, 1996
0-435-08863-7
424 pp, paperback, grades K-3

Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6)
Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy
by Irene C. Fountas, Gay Su Pinnell
Heinemann, 2000
0-325-00310-6
672 pp, paperback, grades 3-6

Kathryn Maurer, M.Ed and Antoinette Spoor, MA are teachers in Nanaimo, BC and the authors of Collection Sourire, a reading series for Kindergarten and grade one French Immersion students. Antoinette has also published a number of popular resource materials including “Le Grand Livre des Sons” For more information contact aspoor@island.net