You need a routine for your kindergarten reading groups. If I had a dime for every time I heard that “a routine” was the answer to a problem, let’s just say… I’d be rich. A routine is the answer to classroom management, engagement, differentiation, struggling readers and so much more. Well, even though I get tired of hearing that… it is TRUE. While it isn’t 100% the answer… it is pretty darn close.
Guided Reading Routine
Here’s the secret sauce to your kindergarten reading groups. You need a routine to simplify your life and the student’s lives. You need a go to recipe that you can tweak a little for each group but will keep you on target.
Kindergarten Reading Group Routine
- Warm up– this could be letters, sounds, or sight words.
- Letter Work, Sound Work, Word Work – this will depend on what reading level you are working on with your students.
- Reading– this will be the meat of your lesson. Read and work on those strategies.
- Comprehension– this is where you dig deeper into the text. Yes, even kindergarten students can think and make connections with sight word sentences.
- Writing– work on writing skills and generate sentences.
Each of these sections can be increased in time and or intensity depending on the level of your students but having this clear guided reading routine will help keep you on track.
Pre-Readers and Level A will spend more time in the letter work and sound work sections and may not make it to the writing section depending on time.
Level B & C students will not need the letter and sound work but will focus their time on word work and building words.
Level D and above students will want to ramp up their fluency and work on complex spelling patterns.
The format stays the same for every level, you just vary between what time of letter, sound or word work you choose to do with your students. This makes planning so much easier.
Also, when you have a clear routine, the ever changing programs used at your district will become less of a stress factor. This type of routine can use used with boxed readers, TPT readers or your own teacher-made readers.
Done For You!
If you want the guesswork of each piece taken out for you then I’ve got you covered too. I made a way to color-code and organize all the activities for easy access. You can take this recipe and tweak it to fit your taste. 🙂
Happy Teaching!
If you want more help with struggling readers, then check out this post about Kindergarten RTI.
