The purpose of this study was mainly to explore how much a guided reading program influenced the seventh graders' word recognition ability and reading motivation. The participants in this study were 29 seventh graders in a class. The program lasted for five weeks, ninety minutes per week. Before and after the program, a standard assessment called "English Word Recognition" was taken by each student respectively in order to collect their pronunciations and understanding of the words. The results of the word recognition pretest were used as the criteria to divide the students into three groups of high, intermediate and low ability. Besides, "Motivation for Reading Questionnaire" (MRQ) was taken by the participants before and after the guided reading program to explore their change of reading motivation. Leveled picture books were used in this study. The teacher prepared three teaching materials and worksheets for the three-group students. T-test, one-way ANOVA and post-hoc comparison were used to analyze. The results showed that the students' posttest of word recognition and MRQ were significantly higher than the pretests. That was, the students' word recognition ability and reading motivation were improved. There was no significant difference between the high, intermediate, and low groups in the reading motivation questionnaire. As for the word recognition, there was significant difference between the three groups. The mean value of the high level group was significantly higher than that of the intermediate group, and the mean value of the intermediate group was significantly higher than that of the low group. Some suggestions based on the results were provided.