Constructivism2

=Website Exemplifying Constructivist Instructional Features =

[|Guided Reading: Constructivism in Action]
  Guided reading is a crucial component of a complete literacy education. Guided reading includes both reading and writing components. It can be taught in different settings, such as individually, small groups, and whole group. Guided reading is tightly tied to the Constructivist theory. The main goal of the Constructivist learning environment enable learners to operate at a higher level of performance. The following conditions allow this. There are “conditions” of Constructivist teaching that are integrated into guided reading. These are immersion, demonstration, engagement, expectation, responsibility, approximation, use, and response.

__Conditions of Constructivism Related to Guided Reading__- -__Immersion__: Students must be involved in an environment that will accept and introduce them to instruction. -__Demonstration__: Students are provided with role models that show them how to perform particular skills. -__Engagement__: Learners are engaged when they have confidence in themselves, believe the lesson is important, and know they will not be made fun of. -__Expectation__: Learners know what is expected of them and understand that they are supported in their efforts. -__Responsibility__: Students must actively participate in their personal learning decisions, such as when, how, and what to learn. -__Approximation__: Students are allowed to make mistakes and given many chances to retry to complete the learning task until they succeed. -__Use__: Learners can take their new knowledge and use it in their own personal way. -__Response__: Feedback is provided to learners throughout their attempts to complete learning tasks.

__Underlying Constructivist Concepts__- These concepts must be used to create successful guided reading instruction. 1) Learners must be engaged with the content before a teacher instructs upon it. 2) Interventions should be used while learners are engaged with information, ideas, and concepts as the main form on instruction. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">3) An environment should be created that allows students engagement and teacher interventions through authentic tasks.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> It is clear that Constructivist views play an integral role in guided reading instruction. The instruction is based on the developmental needs of the students so they can construct future knowledge from their underlying knowledge. To construct knowledge, students must be connected to it. They must be engaged and want to learn. This is the motivating factor that allows students to continue to construct upon what they already know.