This idea of using challenging (not impossible texts) is important. Students do need texts that they can read, but they also need to stretch. Towards that end, I suggest the following.
Instead of front-loading the first reading, you could try front-loading the second or third — after the kids have had a chance to “pedal the bike themselves” — even if that pedaling isn’t perfectly successful.
Monitoring comprehension means not tabulating specific skills that have been accomplished, but what complexity of text language students can negotiate.
First, make sure the kids know what you are up to, that they have English dictionaries, and that they recognize what the challenge is. Rereading and background knowledge are particularly important scaffolds.
Only part of guided reading is under challenge by Common Core. Small group instruction should afford teachers opportunities to observe student problems with reading and interpretation, and this insight should be used to shape instruction.
We want students to understand stories as more than a bunch of structural blocks. Stories are really about conflict, and story maps don’t get at this idea very well. I developed a technique, character perspective charting, that helps kids to summarize the conflicts among characters.
When kids get the opportunity to discuss something with a partner before responding to a teacher question, positive outcomes have been seen in the primary grades in reading and in the upper grades with second-language learners.
Vocabulary learning is incremental and there are more words that kids need to learn than we can teach. Kids need lots of opportunities to confront words in their reading and listening.
Reading comprehension instruction should focus on guiding students to think actively about the ideas in text. I suggest treating inferencing not as a skill but as a strategy for intentionally making sense of text. Students who take specific steps to consciously identify motivations, causes, and linguistic connections are likely to comprehend better.
