Guided instruction is a powerful teaching approach that bridges the gap between explicit instruction and independent learning. It’s a dynamic process where teachers provide targeted support, scaffolding, and feedback to help students master new skills and concepts. This guide delves into the core principles of guided instruction, its implementation in the classroom, and its benefits for student learning.
Understanding Guided Instruction
Guided instruction is fundamentally about tailoring teaching to meet the individual needs of learners. It’s a set of teacher behaviors that are responsive to students’ existing knowledge and their current learning needs. This approach recognizes that students learn at different paces and require different levels of support to achieve mastery.
Key Elements of Guided Instruction
- Re-teaching with Modifications: Teachers revisit skills or strategies, adapting their approach based on student difficulties observed during whole-group instruction.
- Scaffolding and Multiple Entry Points: Providing varied levels of support and different ways to access the material, ensuring all students can participate and learn. This involves “telling them what to do, asking them what to do, reminding them what to do.”
- Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Instruction is carefully aligned with each group’s ZPD, as defined by Lev Vygotsky. This means teaching just beyond what students can do independently, but within reach with support.
- Questioning, Prompting, Explaining, and Modeling: Utilizing these techniques to guide students towards understanding and skill development.
- Monitoring and Planning: Continuously assessing student understanding and adjusting instruction accordingly. Data gathering is crucial for informed decision-making.
Practical Examples of Guided Instruction
Guided instruction manifests in various ways in the classroom, including:
- Clarifying Learning Goals: Helping students understand the objectives and success criteria of a lesson.
- Decoding Assistance: Providing support with phonics and word recognition.
- Text Structure Support: Guiding students to understand how texts are organized.
- Using Text Features: Teaching students how features like headings, subheadings, and visuals enhance comprehension.
- Genre Awareness: Helping students understand the conventions of different genres.
- Interpreting Ideas: Supporting students in understanding the author’s message.
- Making Inferences: Guiding students to draw conclusions based on text evidence.
- Connecting Ideas: Helping students make meaningful connections between concepts within and across texts.
- Understanding Author’s Purpose: Helping students analyze the author’s intent.
- Generalizing and Summarizing: Supporting students in condensing information and drawing broader conclusions.
- Developing and Organizing Ideas: Providing guidance on structuring written work.
- Vocabulary Support: Explicitly teaching lesson-specific and target vocabulary.
- Identifying Knowns and Unknowns: Helping students recognize gaps in their understanding.
- Addressing Misconceptions: Correcting inaccurate or incomplete understandings.
- Planning and Drafting: Guiding students through the writing process.
- Setting Next Steps: Discussing future learning goals and strategies.
- Data Collection: Using tools like running records to inform future instruction.
Guided Practice: The Student’s Role
Guided practice complements guided instruction. It represents the student behaviors that result from the teacher’s guidance.
Key Student Behaviors During Guided Practice:
- Attempting the Skill: Students try the new skill or strategy with teacher assistance.
- Practicing and Extending: Students refine their skills and apply them in new contexts, with support.
- Oral Rehearsal: Students verbalize their understanding of the concepts.
- Experimentation: Students try out new ideas in a safe, supportive small-group setting.
Examples of Guided Practice Activities:
- Reading Aloud: Practicing reading fluency with teacher feedback.
- Writing with Observation: Writing activities where the teacher closely monitors and intervenes as needed.
Effective Teacher Prompts During Guided Sessions:
- “Let’s try one together…”
- “I will guide you through it…”
- “Another way of explaining this is…”
- “Let’s build on what you know by…”
- “So it says here…that makes me think…What about here…What does that make you think about?”
- “What are we doing here?”
- “What’s the skill that we’re trying to practice?”
- “So what we’re doing is…Now let’s try it together…”
- “Leland just explained…can you take us a bit further Chantel?”
- “Let’s figure out what we’ve done and what we still need to do…”
Intermediate Guided Instruction and Practice Lesson Plan Template
| GROUP: | DATE: |
|---|---|
| TEXT: | LEVEL: |
| Learning Goal: (student) | Example: I can find two facts from different parts of a non-fiction text to support an idea (Women had to fight for the right to vote.) |
|---|---|
| Teaching Point: (teacher) | Example: I’m going to model how I skim a non-fiction text to find specific support for an idea and talk about how this is a kind of connection within a text. |
| Setting the Stage: (2-5 minutes) | Examples: review vocabulary, text features, key concept, or strategy. |
| Guided Instruction (5-10 minutes) | Example: listen to students read and/or practice writing providing intervention and guidance as required. |
| Reflection (2 minutes, optional) | Examples: Discussion and/or reflection about learning goal (what did I do to find the two related facts that helped me prove that women had to fight to get the right to vote). |
| Student | Notes | Next Steps |
|---|---|---|
Benefits of Guided Instruction
- Improved Student Understanding: Tailored support clarifies concepts and addresses individual learning gaps.
- Increased Student Engagement: Active participation and targeted assistance keep students motivated.
- Enhanced Skill Development: Focused practice with expert guidance leads to mastery.
- Greater Confidence: Success in a supportive environment builds self-esteem and a willingness to take risks.
- Data-Driven Instruction: Ongoing assessment allows teachers to adjust their teaching to maximize student learning.
Conclusion
Guided instruction is a cornerstone of effective teaching. By understanding its principles and implementing its strategies, educators can create a dynamic learning environment where all students can thrive. The combination of carefully planned instruction, responsive teaching, and targeted practice empowers students to become confident and capable learners. This approach, focused on “teacher behaviours,” ensures that students receive the specific support they need to achieve their full potential.
