Literacy

Report on Classroom Guided Reading Programmes

An Investigation into Structured Comprehension Approach vs Readers Theatre

Guided reading programmes are a significant part of reading programmes in New Zealand classrooms.  Teachers use a guided reading programme  on a daily basis with anticipated outcomes for their students which include raising comprehension levels. With the diversity of cultures and background experiences, or in some cases, a lack of life experiences of our students, their comprehension of the texts provided within a guided reading programme can be very poor. Home backgrounds may not provide experiences or resources that support comprehension of books and texts used in our classroom guided reading programmes.   Children can become reluctant readers because for their lack of understanding and vocabulary (Weisenburger, 2009). This paper will explore how teachers can do more to assist children to comprehend the texts they read within the class guided reading programme. 

  The key concepts within this issue are ‘comprehension’ ‘suitable texts’ and  ‘guided reading programme’. A guided reading programme involves a teacher working with small groups of students who exhibit comparable reading behaviours and can read similar levels of texts with the support of a teacher.  The outcomes of guided reading include increased vocabulary, phonological awareness, fluency of reading, and interaction with the text through conversation and writing (Pinnell & Fountas, 2007). 

The crucial goal of guided reading is to develop independent readers.   

‘Comprehension’ in this context can be conceptualised as learning to construct meaning by linking the words that children read with personal understandings of the world.  They are effective readers when they can self-question during reading, understand texts and are able to summarize key ideas in texts.   ‘Suitable texts’ for guided reading are those that support new learning of the readers.  The new learning may be about content or sentence structure or vocabulary. The texts  chosen need to appeal to  the interests of students (Weisenburger, 2009), be understandable and decodable yet still hold some challenges for the reader (Fountas & Pinnell, 2013).

Teaching Comprehension versus Readers Theatre 

Making meaning and creating meaning are  two pivotal components of developing effective readers (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2007).  As teachers we need awareness of both the inner strategies used by students to successfully decode and encode texts, and teaching approaches to instil and strengthen these strategies in our students. The texts commonly used in guided reading programmes are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction and it is important to be aware that comprehending narratives and storylines requires a different approach to comprehending abstract, factual information. Authors Fischer (2003) and Moran (2006) offer two different approaches teachers could adopt and integrate within their guided reading programmes to increase comprehension and enjoyment of  both fictional and nonfiction texts.

The Structured Comprehension Method

Fischer pre-frames her comprehension strategy with an outline of the conventions that printed material uses to convey its messages. These include:- having a connected, sensible flow from beginning to middle and middle to end, conforming to reality if a nonfiction text, and conveying meaning. She goes on to clarify how skilled ‘comprehenders’ have strong metacognitive skills they apply to detect inconsistencies in texts, make links to personal knowledge and realise when they have misread or failed to understand the text. She compares this with readers she calls “word callers” (p.248) who decode words without monitoring what they read for making meaning. Fischer postulates that these readers developed read-aloud skills early in their schooling well enough to convince teachers they understood texts, when in fact comprehension and vocabulary remained undeveloped.

These students never expect texts to make sense so they never self-correct. 

The Structured Comprehension Method involves taking small groups of struggling readers through a paragraph of nonfiction text sentence by sentence in mini-lessons of ten to twenty minute time slots. Each sentence is explored through the students and teacher posing specific questions focused on connecting the students to the content, understanding the syntax or expanding knowledge of vocabulary and word structure.  The process intentionally develops a back-and –forth relationship between the reader and the text that is the basis of meaning making (Karolides, 1999).

  The students must write their answers rather than call them out and Fischer explains this allows for personal reflection and development of written literacy skills. The method develops students cognitive strategies in making inferences about the text and drawing global inferences from elements of the text that are not adjacent.  From these inferences, readers develop their understanding of pronoun references.  As the students become familiar with the method, they support each other in a co-constructed meaning making  experience. This ensures no one student has to have all the background knowledge needed to comprehend the text. Each child adds to the meaning making from their growing set of decoding skills and content understanding. As students integrate the cognitive habits of comprehension more competently the teacher can hand over more control of the meaning making process (Briggs & Forbes, 2009).

 Fischer credits Marvin Cohn with creating the method in the 1970’s.   I would suggest that the Structured Comprehension Method has features that fits well within the accepted model of a guided reading programme:

• It requires children to work in small groups of similar ability, under the guidance of a teacher who is required to provide pre-reading activities that orientate the students to the book prior to reading the text (Briggs & Forbes, 2009; Fountas & Pinnell, 2013).

• Initially the role of teacher is to provide suitable focusing questions while the role of the students is to self-reflect and write reasonable and probable answers.

• The interactions are mainly teacher-student, student-text, student-teacher.

• As the process repeats over a number of days, and student competency and confidence in decoding and interpreting the text increases, the interchanges shift towards more student-student, student-text,  and student-teacher interactions.     

Readers Theatre

Moran (2006) takes a different approach to both meaning making and meaning creating with the use of readers theatre, a drama convention used to turn text into script that can be read aloud expressively by groups or whole classes. Readers Theatre offers the readers an opportunity to view text as something to be performed, thus providing a reason for reading aloud, and for repeated readings of the same text if indeed a performance to an audience is an intended outcome. Moran suggests that a benefit of readers theatre is the revealing of ‘feeling, tone and characterization’ (p.318) of the text, as well as the opportunity to teach children how to use intonation, word stress and pauses to group words into phrases that parallel the author’s syntax.

 In readers theatre the text remains a major focus throughout the rehearsal and performance. The reality or meaning of the  ‘play’ is co-constructed by the readers and the audience with the readers providing their interpretation of text through fluent or expressive reading while the individual audience members use imagination to  fill in their interpretation of context and setting.

Moran outlines how readers theatre enables her to also use other drama conventions such as choral reading and mime to enable readers of all abilities and degrees of self-confidence to participate. She uses the term ‘plasticity’ to indicate that readers theatre can be effectively used by  groups of any size, with any text from a wide range of genres to suit the needs of the group.

Drama – of any form - is a useful tool for exploring students’ individual reaction to text and their interpretation. Miller and Saxton (2004) state that when students are working with their interpretation, they can begin to self-question and clarify the text:- did the author mean what I thought she meant? What would this character be thinking and believing if s/he expressed these words as I have just expressed them?

Readers theatre can highlight shifts in a text from one character to another as well as shifts in the way an author presents narrative scenes or shifts from an anecdote to an explanation (Bomer, 2006). Through readers theatre children can be encouraged to make mental representations and run a movie in their mind of what the text is conveying. This is a cognitive skill most effective readers and many teachers take for granted, yet needs to be taught to some of our struggling readers and students with English as a second language.  

Reading is a melding of listening and imaging which leads to fluency and understanding (Bomer, 2006).

Reader’s theatre can invite students to create meaning by trying different inflections, tones of voices, styles of speaking – assertively, hesitantly, jokingly, fearfully – and different phrasing. This allows readers to approach texts from their own life experience and combine this with the text to co-construct meaning  (Fountas & Pinnell, 2013; Karolides, 1999).

Parental/ Home Involvement with Readers Theatre

Moran suggests that readers theatre has an added important advantage over other guided reading programme strategies. It can provide opportunities to involve parents and extended family in pleasurable reading opportunities – something we strongly need to build in to guided reading (Fountas & Pinnell, 2013) . Children can take home copies of the ‘script’ with their sections marked to enable them to practice and rehearse for or with other family members. Parents could be made aware of books and stories a teacher is planning to use for subsequent readers theatre and encouraged to incorporate these into home based reading times.

 I can also imagine teachers inviting parents and caregivers to performances of readers theatre and encouraging parents to tell stories from their lives that children could develop into scripts.   These could be brought to school to develop into a class resource of student developed scripts and to perform. Thus the guided reading programme becomes more of a partnership between school and home, allowing parents – particularly immigrant and refugee parents - to feel that they have something of value to contribute to their child’s education.

Conclusion and Implications

Most teachers understand the significant benefits to their students of well-run guided reading programmes. They select texts and activities to link readers to texts and to enable both students and teachers to ascertain the developing understanding of text through fluency, vocab decoding and ability to use the syntax of the text to discover the author’s meaning.  Fischer and Moran each offer different strategies that could be considered by teachers as worthy of inclusion in guided reading programmes.

With the Comprehension Strategy, children are carefully guided to ‘think within the text’ (Fountas & Pinnell, 2013, p. 272). Nonfiction texts can become exciting and navigable as children are taught by teacher modelling how to ask questions about text, reflect on personal knowledge and search for information within each sentence.  This strategy allows children in homogenous groups to develop their individual strengths and support each other as they experience co-constructed meaning making.

An implication of using the strategy is the need for teachers to slow down the processing of text into a discovery experience that unfolds one sentence at a time, initially one sentence per day.    

 Readers theatre offers students a reason to read aloud with their peers and to repeatedly read aloud a text.  All students can be catered for by integrating other drama conventions for the quiet, the shy and the ‘drama queens’ of any class. Additional activities such as reading into a taping device which can be played back, reading with silly voices and playing with phrasing that doesn’t work allows readers to hear both their own voices and the voice of the author (Bomer, 2006). The students are able to playfully engage with syntax and become familiar with whole texts while only having a small part to play in the readers theatre.

An implication of this approach is the need for teachers to take a light-hearted approach to their guided reading programme. There may be some chaos and mistakes along the way. Ultimately, both humour and mistakes play significant roles in most remembered learning experiences.

I read these two readings initially believing I would find more value in the readers theatre approach than the comprehension strategy. I have had a shift in my thinking. Both approaches offer our teachers and students tools to meet the challenges of developing students reading power. Both can fit comfortably within a guided reading programme and both would add to teachers’ best practice and tool kit of strategies to meet the needs of individual students.

Specific Articles Summarized

Bomer, R. (2006). Reading with the Mind’s Ear: Listening to Text as a Mental Action. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(6), 524–535. doi:10.2307/40017609

This article explores the forms of listening that proficient readers engage in and suggests ways in which listening links to fluency and the syntactic cueing system. It begins by suggesting it is important to clarify the kinds of thinking involved in the complex process labelled ‘reading’ and goes on to distinguish between ‘envisioning’ and ‘listening’. Bomer defines  listening while you read as tuning in with your ‘mental ear to the way sentences sound’(p.525). Readers hear  the voice of characters and any shifts from explanations to anecdotes. Further in the article Bomer discusses listening for the intonation and phrasing of the sentences to be able to make sense of  abstract information or explanations.

 By using a passage of a short story, Bomer analyses the text's demands on readers' thinking, particularly about sound. He links the listening a reader does with other kinds of thinking being used at the same time – visualising, anticipating ends of sentences, and interpreting big ideas within the story. He highlights successful readers ability to draw on their knowledge of how language is supposed to sound- the ‘syntactic cueing system’ (p.528) and explains that this is linked to the melody of the sentence. The article introduces the term ‘prosody’, contextualising it in computer science and babies learning to speaking, and links prosody with reading fluency.

 Mini-lessons and individual conferences are discussed as sites of intervention and teaching the thinking required for proficient reading.  Examples of teacher interventions in one-on-one teacher-student conferences are given. Unfortunately, it is not clear what age or year level the students are. The article was published in the journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, so we may assume the students were aged between 10 and   19. Randy Bomer teaches at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S.A.

Briggs, C., & Forbes, S. (2009). Orientation to a New Book: More than a Picture Walk. The Reading Teacher, 62(8), 706–709. doi:10.2307/20486627

This article provides material to support teacher practice of providing individually constructed, book orientations. The authors argue that readers need to be in control of his or her own learning and that book orientations help ensure emergent and struggling readers can access meaning, structure, and visual information, yet provides opportunities for problem solving that encourages engagement in independent and successful processing behaviours. 

The article is a helpful reminder that the teacher plays a pivotal role in establishing the ‘tone’ of introductory conversations about any text to any age group. It is the teacher who initially pre-frames a text providing some relevant background knowledge for students to attach new information onto about the format of the book and its content. The aim of any book orientation is to lead students into a successful experience of decoding and encoding the literature.

The article contains one table to illustrate how teachers can assist readers in accessing different categories of information during a book orientation.

Fischer, C. (2003). Revisiting the Reader’s Rudder: A Comprehension Strategy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(3), 248–256. doi:10.2307/40014757

 Fischer details the process of a comprehension method used with passive readers who can read words (decode) but not make sense of what they read (encode).   Fischer asserts that these children do not expect the text to make sense so they are unlikely to self-correct. The structured comprehension method  is defined and explained. The strategies of skilled comprehenders are unpacked and backed by references to other research and authors.

The article outlines appropriate group size, text genre, length, and instructional level. Details of setting and length of time for lessons are covered. The process is covered, from pre-reading activities, to teacher/student questions and teacher modelling of monitoring reading for meaning making. Fischer explains that the method works by building understanding through accretion, with students internalising successful meaning making thought processes over time.

The article provides examples of specific questions to use, as well as questions to avoid in the method. Categories of questions such as Literal recall, Translations and Interpretations are outlined.  A detailed outline is given of using the method with a group of students with low instructional reading levels. The article concludes with a caution that for the method to be effective, lessons must be carried out exactly as instructed, and teachers need to be persistent. Fischer links the method to best practices research, however she only cites one reference which seems a little light weight  given that the author indicates she has been using the structured comprehension for 25 years with students of many levels of age and ability. However, she is careful to point out it is one part of a much wider assortment of literacy approaches she utilises.  Cynthia Fischer teaches reading, English and special education classes at West Albemarie High School in Crezet, Virginia, U.S.A. She was a doctoral student in reading education at the University of Virgina, Charlottesvile, U.S.A. when she wrote the article.

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2013). Guided Reading: The Romance and the Reality. Reading Teacher, 66(4), 268–284.

 This article compares the ‘romanticised’ perception of guided reading with the authors view of the ‘reality’ of guided reading.  The article defines guided reading, the elements of proficient reading are listed and the elements of a guided reading lesson are outlined.

The bulk of the article addresses critical aspects of guided reading programmes that the authors believe need to be refined in the light of new understandings around readers and the reading process, texts and teaching.  Fountas and Pinnell suggest the goal of guided reading is to build students ‘reading power- a network of strategic actions for processing texts’ (p 272).  They describe 12 systems of strategic activities, divided into three categories – Thinking Within the Text, Thinking Beyond the Text, and Thinking about the Text. They conceptualise the term ‘reading fluency’ and discuss the importance of oral language throughout the development of reading strategies.

With regard to teaching, Fountas and Pinnell convey the importance of teacher’s specific use of facilitative language to scaffold students learning during oral reading times. The authors make recommendations regarding on-going assessment of students to ensure grouping is dynamic and temporary rather than static. They provide a chart of ten characteristics used to determine a books level.

They recommend teacher self-reflection to effectively develop their guided reading programmes and point out the guided reading programme needs to be considered as one part of a broader, high-quality literacy effort that includes other instructional contexts such as literature discussion and interactive read-aloud opportunities.

 The article provides charts and diagrams to clarify key aspects as well as the title of a book by the authors to support teachers’ ability to teach for changes in reading behaviour. They conclude with suggestions for teacher professional development and the outline of a U.S.A research project into one-on-one literacy coaching.

Irene Fountas is Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Gay Su Pinnell is Professor Emeritus in the School of Teaching and Learning, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. They developed a system of reading levels known as Fountas & Pinnell reading levels.

Kerry Moran, K. J. (2006). Nurturing Emergent Readers Through Readers Theater. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(5), 317–323. doi:10.1007/s10643-006-0089-8

 The purpose of this article is to modify the concept of readers theatre as a literacy strategy for children who are emergent readers. It first defines readers theatre, describing some of readers theatre characteristics and  benefits, principally in the area of literacy development. Finally, it includes ideas for effectively implementing a readers’ theatre program with young children.

A key point is that mean-making in readers theatre is co-constructed between readers and audience. Readers use fluent, expressive reading to build and convey meaning with minimal use of props and actions. Audience complete the meaning making  by using their imagination to fill in the action and accessories. Moran points out that she blurs boundaries between drama genres such as readers theatre and choral reading and includes mime to encourage student participation. As long as text is a visual, prominent part of the development of readers theatre, Moran is willing to blend drama conventions.  In this context, Moran introduces the concept of plasticity and the wide range of texts, settings and populations that can benefit from readers theatre developed with plasticity.

The article includes tables of text resources and suggestions for adaptation of resources to suit emergent readers. Some suggestions within the body of the article are questionable, such as that of using a prompt card for isolated words for young children to say within the body of the text. Other suggestions such as colour coding speaking parts and teacher modelling of expressive fluent oral reading are more helpful. 

The article is aimed at teachers of early childhood and young school age children. The tone of the article is simple and easy to read, with ideas presented in general terms rather than highly detailed descriptions. By being big-picture orientated, Moran relinquishes the opportunity to give her reader more specific ideas of how to immediately implement reader theatre. Instead she gives a taste of a drama convention with rich potential to develop students’ comprehension and enjoyment of text reading. Moran is associated with the Professional Studies in Education Department of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.  Her capacity in that department is unstated.

Weisenburger, S. (2009). Using Readers’ Theater with Multicultural Literature. The Education Digest, 74(5), 55.

  A concise anecdotal article that begins by briefly outlining the population of the urban school the author taught in, and the added challenges the students faced of being African American and poor.

We are informed of the students disenchantment with the schools required reading text books and that Weisenburger had tried other strategies to engage and excite her students. However, no details are given of these strategies to place the success of Readers Theatre against. Significantly though, the author mentions the disconnection between the reading texts and her students. No class texts reflected their life experiences or culture. The students are described as struggling readers’ unable to engage in independent reading. Again, no data is supplied to back the anecdote.  The Multicultural Literature is explained briefly as a book about an African American boy.  An equally brief explanation of the benefits of presenting Multicultural Literature to her class is included.

The rest of the article outlines what Readers Theatre is, the benefits,  and  some suggestions regarding choosing a suitable text. The process of involving the children in the Readers Theatre is presented in steps suitable for a class disinterested in reading and lacking confidence to read aloud with each other.  The article ends with claims of increased confidence by lower grade readers, participation by shy children and more fluent readers spending time voluntarily practising reading aloud with different inflection although no data is given to substantiate the claims.

The article is easily read. It could have benefitted from some references to other authors and research on specific benefits of readers theatre for similar populations. Weisenburger was a teacher of second grade children in Ohio who had used readers theatre in her classroom practice for four years prior to writing the article.

APA References

Bomer, R. (2006). Reading with the Mind’s Ear: Listening to Text as a Mental Action. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(6), 524–535. doi:10.2307/40017609

Briggs, C., & Forbes, S. (2009). Orientation to a New Book: More than a Picture Walk. The Reading Teacher, 62(8), 706–709. doi:10.2307/20486627

Fischer, C. (2003). Revisiting the Reader’s Rudder: A Comprehension Strategy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(3), 248–256. doi:10.2307/40014757

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2013). Guided Reading: The Romance and the Reality. Reading Teacher, 66(4), 268–284.

Karolides, N. J. (1999). Theory and practice: An interview with Louise M. Rosenblatt. Language Arts, 77(2), 158–170. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/docview/196854867

Kerry Moran, K. J. (2006). Nurturing Emergent Readers Through Readers Theater. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(5), 317–323. doi:10.1007/s10643-006-0089-8

Miller, C. S., & Saxton, J. (2004). Into the story. Portsmouth, U.S.A.: Heinemann.

New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, N.Z: Published for the Ministry of Education by Learning Media.

Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2007). The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-8: Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support. Heinemann.

Weisenburger, S. (2009). Using Readers’ Theater with Multicultural Literature. The Education Digest, 74(5), 55.

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