Guided Reading in Kindergarten

This is my first year teaching kindergarteners reading and I. love. it. I seriously can't get enough. They are just so precious and reading instruction is always so fun with those kiddos. I created a set of guided reading activities slowly and I've been testing them on my students and on my son who is learning to read right now. So far, they've been a hit with the kids and I've seen a lot of growth as a result.  So, if you're looking for some guided reading activities for your kindergarten kids that are hands-on, eye-catching and effective, you might like this set!

I made some short, simple stories (as in one-two sentence stories). Believe it or not, these one-two sentence stories have a character, an event, and most have dialogue. I have my students "whisper read" them, using their strategies to read accurately. Then I have them reread them a few times for fluency and to work on expression with the dialogue and stopping at punctuation. Of course, this is at the basic level, so it's not perfect, but I think it's so important to introduce and model this skill anyway.  After reading, they can spin the story spinner to answer questions about their mini story. Comprehension...check. fluency... check. using strategies to read accurately... check. Gaining confidence... hopefully check!

In the picture above, he is pointing out who the character was in the text.

Here the student is underlining what the character is saying.

My favorite might be these sequencing cards. Each "story" has four cards. Students read the cards and put them in order. 

My son was all about this! 

I love using fluency sentence strips. It gives students an opportunity to practice reading sight words, sounding out words, and using picture clues. These are perfect for my newest readers.

Shawn's favorite was the sight word spin. He loved going through and mastering each list. When he read a column correctly, he could color in a smile. 

If you are looking for activities to spice up your guided reading groups for those beginning readers, come by my blog to see more: