Rethinking Guided Reading: What Should Teachers Do Instead?

Summary:

• Research shows leveled reading is unreliable and can limit growth, especially when struggling readers are consistently given easier texts.
• Students make greater gains when taught with grade-level texts, supported by explicit instruction and targeted scaffolding.
• Differentiate by support, not text level — use whole-group instruction and flexible small groups to address fluency, vocabulary, syntax, and comprehension needs.

Moving Beyond Leveled Texts: Research-Based Alternatives to Guided Reading

As more schools and districts shift away from the use of guided reading with leveled texts, many teachers are left with a practical and pressing question: If I’m not using guided reading anymore, what should I be doing instead?

This question does not generally come from a straightforward resistance to change. Instead, it reflects the reality that guided reading was long positioned as a best practice in teaching students to read.

Teachers were trained in both undergraduate programs and local professional development sessions to match students to texts at their instructional level, with the belief that doing so was the most effective way to support readers and promote growth. For many educators, guided reading felt responsive, manageable, and aligned with the goal of meeting students where they are.

So, when teachers hear that guided reading with leveled texts may not be the most effective way to support reading development, the uncertainty is understandable. If students are reading below grade level, how do we support them without overwhelming them? If leveled texts aren’t the answer, what replaces them?

In this blog, we’ll take a look at why and how we should move from guided reading with leveled texts to instruction that better promotes student reading growth and achievement.

A Quick Caveat

Before diving in, it’s important to clarify the instructional context for this conversation. The ideas in this blog are most applicable for students who have a foundational understanding of phonics: skills typically in place by the beginning of second grade. While students in this category may still have gaps that make reading more complex words challenging (for instance, multisyllable words), they still benefit from regular engagement with grade-level texts. Additionally, this blog focuses on texts and practices for instruction, not students’ independent reading.

For more information on texts and practices for emergent readers, check out our blog, Decodable Readers vs. Non-Controlled Text: How to Select Classroom Texts Based on the Science of Reading or Decodable Readers or Non-Controlled Texts? What the Research Says.

Why Guided Reading with Leveled Texts Falls Short

At the center of guided reading is a well-intentioned belief: that students learn best when they read texts matched to their current reading level. This belief has shaped instructional decisions for decades. However, a growing body of research, known as the Science of Reading, has raised concerns about the unintended consequences of this approach, particularly for students who struggle with reading.

Guided reading rests on the idea that teachers can accurately identify a student’s “instructional level” and then match that student to an appropriately leveled text. In practice, this is far more difficult and unreliable than it appears. Reading level placement can vary widely depending on the assessment used or the teacher administering it, raising questions about how stable or precise these labels truly are (Shanahan, 2025).

Compounding this challenge is the difficulty of leveling texts themselves. Research has shown that texts assigned the same level can differ significantly in vocabulary demands, sentence complexity, and conceptual density, making level labels an imprecise guide for instructional decision-making (Hiebert & Koons, 2019).

The concept of “instructional level” also assumes that students should primarily be taught using texts they can already read with relatively high accuracy and comprehension. But if students are consistently successful with the texts they are given, what opportunities are they receiving to stretch as readers and develop new skills?

For struggling readers, this approach can have particularly limiting effects. Texts simplified to fit a specific reading level often reduce exposure to the language, vocabulary, and ideas found in grade-level or complex texts. As author and researcher Dr. Elfreida Hiebert explains, while simplified texts may make reading feel easier in the short term, they can also limit students’ opportunities to build the knowledge and academic language needed to successfully comprehend more complex texts over time (Hiebert, 2018).

Researchers have recently emphasized that struggling readers do not close gaps by reading easier texts; they close gaps through explicit instruction that supports them in reading grade-level texts successfully (Shanahan, 2025).

This point is critical.

Students must be taught how to navigate the linguistic and cognitive demands that complex texts present.

The instructional challenge teachers now face is not selecting the “right” text level to utilize in guided reading. It is identifying what makes a potential text difficult for students to navigate and providing targeted supports to address those specific challenges.

From Text Levels to Scaffolding: A Better Approach

Research increasingly points toward an instructional model that keeps grade-level text at the center while increasing instructional scaffolding as necessary. Rather than differentiating by assigning different texts, teachers differentiate by adjusting the support students receive while engaging with the same text.

This shift reframes a familiar question. Instead of asking, What level of text does this student need? teachers ask, What support does this student need to access this text?

This approach maintains high expectations while recognizing that students will require different forms of scaffolding to meet those expectations. It also ensures that all students have access to the same ideas, vocabulary, and knowledge.

This shift begins with whole-group instruction.

Whole-Group Instruction with Grade-Level Text

In classrooms that move away from guided reading, whole-group instruction becomes the central space for teaching reading. When teachers use a shared, grade-level text, they are able to model the kinds of thinking and problem-solving that proficient readers use when texts become challenging.

Selecting Texts

First, teachers must identify appropriate grade-level texts. One helpful way to start is with adopted program materials that are already designed to align with grade-level standards and expectations for text complexity. These sources often provide a reliable starting point and reduce the need for teachers to independently determine text appropriateness.

• Begin with texts included in core instructional materials, which are typically curated and sequenced to reflect grade-level language standards and content goals.
• If choosing to expand text selections, use state standards or Common Core text complexity guidance, including measures like Lexile, to confirm that selected texts fall within the expected grade-level band.
• Focus on instructional purpose rather than independent readability, selecting texts that may require scaffolding but represent the complexity students are expected to learn to manage.
• This approach helps ensure that instruction remains anchored in grade-level expectations.

Providing Text Instruction

Whole-group instruction can now become the place where teachers instruct students on how to close the gap between what they can currently read and understand versus a more difficult text.

By prioritizing instruction on a single grade-level text, instead of multiple leveled texts, teachers can focus on more intentional planning and text familiarity. This allows teachers more ability to anticipate where students are likely to struggle with the text and prepare scaffolds in advance. Often, students’ struggles fall into the following areas:

• Fluency: The ability to read the text with automaticity and prosody
• Vocabulary: The ability to understand and make meaning from the words used in the text
• Syntax and Cohesion: The ability to understand how sentences are put together and how ideas connect across sentences and paragraphs to create meaning
• Text Structure: The ability to recognize how a text is organized and use that structure to support understanding
• Knowledge: The background knowledge and experiences a reader brings to a text
• Comprehension Strategies: The intentional actions readers use to monitor understanding, clarify meaning, and make sense of text when comprehension breaks down

Teachers can use repeated reading of a text or sections of a text to increase fluency, draw attention to complex sentences, and model how readers make sense of unfamiliar vocabulary within context. They can show students how to track ideas across sentences and paragraphs; how pronouns and words like and, but or therefore connect ideas; and how text structure supports meaning.

Whole-group instruction also provides ample opportunities for formative assessment. During instruction, teachers can observe misunderstandings in order to provide immediate corrective feedback. These observations, along with other data points, can also guide teachers on their small-group instruction.

Using Assessment to Inform Instruction

In traditional guided reading models, assessment often functions as a sorting mechanism. Students are assessed, assigned a level, and grouped accordingly. Instruction follows the text level.

In a text-centered model, assessment serves a different purpose. Teachers use ongoing observations and data to determine why students struggled and what instruction is needed next. These observations point not to using different texts in small-group instruction, but to different instructional responses.

Small-Group Instruction Without Guided Reading and Leveled Texts

Moving away from guided reading doesn’t remove small-group instruction from the classroom. Small-group instruction remains a useful part of literacy instruction, but its focus shifts. Rather than rotating students through different leveled books, teachers use small groups to provide targeted instruction based on students’ interactions with the grade-level text. In some cases, small-group instruction can be used to reinforce foundational skills with students who have gaps.

The text remains constant. The instruction varies.

In small groups, teachers might support students who need additional fluency practice by rereading portions of the whole-group text with guidance and feedback. Students who struggle with complex syntax may revisit challenging sentences and work through them step by step. Students who need vocabulary support may examine key words in context and practice using them in discussion or writing.

Keeping the grade-level text at the center of instruction also allows for flexible grouping. Groups can change based on the demands of the text and the needs students demonstrate, rather than students remaining in fixed reading levels. Instruction becomes responsive without becoming fragmented.

Supporting Teachers Through the Shift

For many teachers, this shift away from guided reading requires rethinking familiar routines. Guided reading offered a clear structure, and moving away from it can feel uncertain at first. To support teachers through this transition, it can be helpful to replace guided reading with a predictable, grade-level text routine that keeps instruction focused and manageable:

• Anchor instruction in one shared, grade-level text, allowing teachers to plan ahead for likely points of difficulty in decoding, fluency, vocabulary, or syntax.
• Model how skilled readers navigate challenges through think-alouds, repeated readings, and explicit attention to language and text structure.
• Collect formative evidence during whole-group instruction by listening to student reading and noting where students struggle.
• Use data and observations to form temporary, skills-based small groups, focused on specific instructional needs rather than text level.
• Return to the grade-level text in small groups to provide targeted reteaching or additional practice, strengthening students’ ability to access grade-level text with increasing independence.

Over time, this cycle of modeling, scaffolded practice, formative assessment, and responsive small-group instruction establishes a new instructional routine, one that maintains structure while aligning more closely with what research tells us about how students learn to read grade-level text.

How This Shift Improves Equity and Access

Moving away from guided reading with leveled texts is not about eliminating differentiation. It is about redefining it. Instead of differentiating by text difficulty, teachers differentiate by instructional support.

This shift also has significant implications for increasing equity. When some students consistently engage with simplified texts, they have fewer opportunities to encounter the language and ideas that define grade-level learning. Over time, this can limit access to academic vocabulary, background knowledge, and complex thinking.

When all students work with grade-level texts — and receive the instruction they need to do so — access is expanded rather than restricted.