As 4-Blocks training has occurred around the country, many teachers have grown to understand the importance of alignment in the planning and delivery of the Guided Reading Block. Some of us realize that quite often we plan a good mini-lesson--the explicit instruction of skills and strategies--focusing on comprehension. Then we set a purpose for kids' reading that day because we understand the importance of that element to guide kids through the text. And, we bring closure to our lesson in some engaging way, just as we know we should. However, we pause to look at the alignment of our lesson, only to discover that the purpose we set has absolutely nothing to do with the mini-lesson we taught, and, furthermore, the closure has nothing to do with either the mini-lesson or the purpose! Something is amiss!

To deliver the most effective lesson and for kids to learn optimally, we must align our lessons so that what we essentially do is teach something, have kids apply it, and then conclude by calling attention to the success--or lack of--the application. Here are two examples of lessons, one aligned and one misaligned:

Teacher 1's Lesson Plan for One Day

Guided Reading Block

Selection: How Cats Became Our Pets

Prior Knowledge: Graph the types of pets kids in the class own. Follow up by explaining that these animals have not always been considered pets. Some were considered quite dangerous and threatening to humans.

Vocabulary: domestic, Egyptian, sailors

Prediction: Students will be asked to predict at what point in history cats became our pets.

Mini-Lesson: Cause and effect (Provide examples of cause and effect in our everyday lives. Use sentence strips in pocket chart to illustrate. All causes are written in green and are placed on left side of chart. All effects are written in red and placed to the right of the cause in the pocket chart.)

Purpose: Give each partner group a sentence strip from the story. After they practice reading, they should stop and discuss the sentence on their strip. If it is in red, it's an effect in the story. If it's in green, it's a cause in the story. With your partner, determine the cause of your effect or the effect of your cause.

During Reading Format: Kids will read in partners.

Closure: One partner group at the time will be called to come and stand with their sentence strip. Which group has the cause or the effect to match the strip presented? Once the two groups have joined, they can turn their sentence strips on the back to see if an identifying mark (a circle, triangle, squiggly mark) matches with the other sentence strip. If so, they are correct.

Teacher 2's Lesson Plan for One Day

Guided Reading Block

Selection: How Cats Became Our Pets

Prior Knowledge: Graph the types of pets kids in the class own. Follow up by explaining that these animals have not always been considered pets. Some were considered quite dangerous and threatening to humans.

Vocabulary: domestic, Egyptian, sailors

Prediction: Students will make predictions about the role these 3 vocabulary words have played in having cats become domesticated.

Mini-Lesson: Cause and effect (Provide examples of cause and effect in our everyday lives. Use sentence strips in pocket chart to illustrate. All causes are written in green and are placed on left side of chart. All effects are written in red and placed to the right of the cause in the pocket chart.)

Purpose: After students read, they should stop and retell the events of the story in the correct chronological order.

During Reading Format: Kids will read in playschool groups.

Closure: Each playschool group will be called upon to act out how cats were treated at different points in history.

Now, both teachers above have included necessary elements in their Guided Reading lesson: the pre-reading elements that provide optimal foundation for students; a format that can be used for students to support each other and practice the text; and a closure activity that engages students. All of the bits and pieces of both lessons are appropriate activities that teachers might use. However, when we look closely, we see that Teacher 1 has taught cause and effect as her mini-lesson, has students focusing on the cause and effect relationships in the story as they read and discuss the text, and, finally, has a closure activity that validates their discoveries about cause and effect in the story.

Using the exact same text, Teacher 2 also chosen cause and effect as her mini-lesson, but has taken another route as she continues with her delivery. The purpose she has set for students deals with sequencing--a worthy comprehension skill, but not aligned with her mini-lesson. She has not allowed her students the opportunity to apply the skill that she has just taught. Next, she further confuses the issue by bringing closure to the lesson using dramatizations of the students' understanding of various periods of history included in the text. From this activity, she has no way of knowing whether kids understood cause and effect or recognized this relationship in the text.

Our goal is certainly to provide the most effective lessons we can to students. We must put a great deal of thought into our planning, considering always the alignment that will allow for optimal learning. A tough task--but certainly worth the time!