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Using Assessments to Form Guided Reading Groups

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Are you using assessments to form your guided reading groups?  Come and see the 3 different assessments that I use to guide my thinking when forming my groups!

When it comes to forming your Guided Reading Groups do you get stuck? Are you using assessments to form your guided reading groups? Do you wonder what kids should be grouped together?

Using your assessments to create your groups

I know we all have different assessments that we usually HAVE to use in our district. So, you will use what you are familiar with using. Our main source of getting reading levels is by using Fountas and Pinnell’s Reading Benchmarks. I really love these books as it allows me as the teacher to really see what students are doing when they are reading. It includes all of the running records and comprehension questions.

Use a Variety of Tools

Usually, one assessment may not give you all of the information that you need. There are 3 main assessments that I use to help create my guided reading groups.

Reading Benchmarks

If you can take a running record and get the student’s instructional reading level (90%-94% accuracy), this is going to be the main thing to look at when forming your guided reading groups. You need to make sure that comprehension and fluency are also fairly strong.

Sight Words

Getting an idea of how strong your students are with reading sight words fluently is also something that I take into consideration. Most schools use either the Fry List or Dolch List. I actually prefer Lucy Calkins High Frequency Word List. The words seem to match up with reading levels. Get a copy of these lists HERE.

Looking for a different, more useful, sight word list?  Try using Lucy Calkins High Frequency Word Lists.  They match up greatly with guided reading levels A-H.  Check them out here!

Word Attack Assessments

Along with getting a good running record, I also like to give assessments that help me determine how well they are with word attack skills. These assessments have students reading and writing short vowels, blends, digraphs, long vowels etc. They really help me get a better understanding of what my students are doing when reading and writing words.

Looking for some reading assessments that focus on word attack skills?  These assessments help teachers determine students thinking when reading words.  Many phonics skills are included.

Forming Groups

Now that you have some assessments in place, you can start to form your groups. I like to have no more than 5 groups (this may not be possible with Covid among us) and no more than 6 students in each group. I have a Youtube video that better explains how I form my guided reading groups.

See how I use assessments to decide how to group my students for guided reading!

I hope this helps you with forming your guided reading groups! I have a Facebook Group page you may want to join- Centers and Guided Reading with JD’s Rockin’ Readers! I would love to see you there!

Are you using assessments to form your guided reading groups?  Come and see the 3 different assessments that I use to guide my thinking when forming my groups!

Jennie

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K-2 TEACHING IDEAS AND FREEBIES TO YOUR INBOX?