Scaffolding Emergent Readers in Guided Reading

Scaffolding Emergent Readers

You have your guided reading group set up. But how do you help students reach higher reading levels? Your student is at a guided reading level A and B, what do you do? Here are 9 learning targets for guided reading with emergent readers. These skills will prepare your students for the next level of reading.

Nine Necessary Emergent Reader Skills

1. Word Matching: Read aloud and have the student point to the words as you read.
2. Meaning: Build a comprehension focus by asking the student questions about the pictures. Then read the text.
3. Sounds: Read a word to the student and ask which letters make the ___ sound. The student will point and say the letters, then repeat the sound.
4. Oral Reading: Increase fluency by reading 1-2 line stories.
5. Space Recognition: Don’t skip the basics! Have the student point to spaces between words and sentences.
6. Choral Matching: Just like word matching above, but this one the student also read the word with you.
7. Letter Recognition: Another basic. Add to it, what are the vowels? Also teach, “Vowels are words that use your throat, not your mouth.”
8. High-Frequency: Practice some high-frequency words. 
9. Name Recognition: The student must know his/her own name in print.

Emergent Readers Need the Reading-Writing Connection

Emergent readers are exploring. Help them make the connection to writing by embedding these writing skills in your guided reading lessons:

1. Writing names from left to right.
2. Show a picture and model how to write the word that describes the picture.
3. Label drawings with one or two words.
4. Write beginning consonants of words that you read to them.
5. Write CVC words as you read them in the text.
6. Create a word journal where students find two words each day. Copy the words and draw a quick sketch of the meaning of the word.

If you use these strategies, your students will quickly develop the skills necessary for the next level of reading. They will build confidence with print and understand that all those back squigglies on the page – they have meaning. Just like the pictures.