Guided Reading

The article I found for this week was called "Modified Guided Reading: Gateway to English as a Second Language and Literacy Learning" by Mary A. Avalos, Alina Plasencia, Celina Chavez, Josefa Rascon. This document can be found on UTK's web database. The article discussed how to use a guided reading program with ELL students. This is of great interest to me since most deaf and hard of hearing (HoH) students are severely language delayed. English is difficult for them to learn because it is a different language than ASL. This article applies to my professional life very well. I think that many of the concepts for teaching ELL students can be applied to deaf/HoH students as well. A few key points from the text: 

• The reading texts need to “present a reasonable challenge but also present an opportunity for potential success.”

• An ELL student's L1 reading level is tied to their L2 reading level. If they know how to read in L1, they have the process down of what all goes into reading. However, they must now apply these properties of reading to L2.

 I really like this quote from the text about the benefits of guided reading in general: 

• “Guided reading provides teachers with a systematic, yet open-ended framework for evaluating students’ needs while building upon the strengths students have already demonstrated.”

• Modified guided reading helps because these ELL students are put with other fluent speakers of English and are given time to read in English, discuss in English, and share their thoughts in English.

• I really like the idea of going through the figurative language, and also the homophones, homographs, and heteronyms.
  
• I also think it is a great idea to provide background knowledge before jumping into a story. If there are a few key words in the story that the child does not know the meaning of, then they will more than likely be confused throughout the story.  

Do you have any suggestions on how to best use a guided reading program for language delayed children? What are some books you have used in the past, and do you think you would be able to use them across a broad spectrum of reading abilities?