Creating Balanced Readers in Guided Reading

Choosing the correct text type and level is essential for teaching reading to young learners. When choosing these texts we need to make sure they are going to help us to create a balanced reader, this is the take home message I got from the latest course I have been on regarding guided reading in the classroom. 

But what is a balanced reader? 

Reading is not just about ensuring that our learners can decode words, but it is also to ensure they read with fluency and correct phrasing and as educators it is our job to teach this. Through effective selection of texts and a good understanding of what each level entails, we can teach our learners to be balanced readers.

I completely agree with creating balanced readers, however,  I admit that as teachers we can look at reading as a 'numbers game', where we have a level in our heads we are trying to get our readers to. We move them up here if the students are decoding the words, however, are we focusing to much on the decoding and not enough on fluency, phrasing and comprehension. I know as a junior teacher where my children are reading a lot of books at magenta, red and yellow, decoding is a strong indicator to me as to whether they are ready to move or not. However, what I have come to understand is that we need to create a balanced reader, yes we want them to be able to decode words, but they also MUST make sense and understand what they are reading, they need to be able to read fluently and have correct phrasing.

The PM reading books have been carefully constructed in a way that allows us as teachers to teach our learners the meaning of different elements of text i.e. introducing question marks at level ___, introducing contractions at level___. This is not random but very specific to the level of reading the child is up to. We need to be aware of this, so that our specific teaching points circulate and hone in on these teaching points.The PM  reading books have been specifically created so that we are teaching students to be balanced readers, each level is teaching children a new bode to their belt in terms of coming a balanced reader. We need to ensure that as educators we are ensuring our learners are balanced in their reading so that they can understand and make sense of what they are reading, as this is important for their future at school and the outside world.