Posted on: 23/09/2013
This is a summarised version which is part of a longer article in October’s Primary Teacher Update magazine.http://www.primaryteacherupdate.co.uk for subscription details.
One of the areas we support that can strike fear into the sanest of teachers can be the organisation and delivering of guided reading. This is one of the legacies of the original Literacy hour, which in many schools has remained as the primary method for teaching children and supporting reading. The role of guided reading has remained the same throughout these years, that of supporting comprehension. Whilst phonics for many is seen as ‘the gateway to reading’, the pedagogy behind guided reading involves the teacher questioning children whilst hearing readers in a small group where children are roughly of the same reading ability.
Guided reading works because it takes place in a small group, so the teacher has the opportunity to not only hear each child read, but to question them individually on their understanding of the text as well as have a discussion within the safe parameters of a small group.
‘Guided reading should be within the literacy lesson’
Guided reading traditionally took place within the literacy hour, but this no longer fits most schools approach to literacy, so it is best to place it at a time outside the main time for teaching literacy and this can help to prioritise the place of reading as a subject in its own right in school.
‘Children read one at a time around the table’
Ideally groups should be no bigger than 6 children, and all children need to have a copy of the text, as well as the teacher. This is so that each child can read at the same time, whilst the teacher goes around the group to listen. This maximizes the time the children can read for. If the children take it in turns to read, then this can encourage them to just wait for their turn and not read all of the text.
‘The text should be very challenging to read’
Guided reading is all about supporting children to be independent readers and if the text is too challenging to tackle it fluently, then this can not only deter the reader from reading on, but the ‘flow’ of a session can be interrupted with individual children being ‘stuck’ on a word and requiring support. Therefore, it is appropriate for a text to be chosen for a group that aims to have 90-95% fluency, which would mean that roughly one word in ten would present a challenge. In order to pitch this correctly, the first session of the year may include a reading assessment with a miscue analysis or a timed session.
The time allocated for a guided reading session can vary from 20 minutes to 30 minutes according to individual school timetables, but the recommended time is a 20 minute session. This means that you have to be very organised to ensure the time is used well to make sure every child has the opportunity to read. A breakdown of a session could look like this –
5 minutes – Introduction and recap/Strategy check/Set key questions
10 minutes – Independent reading
5 minutes – Review and discuss/Set follow up task
The choice of text for the guided reading session is paramount. Whatever text is chosen it must engage; through subject matter and by the decoding level. It is vital that the text should be within the realms of the child’s current range of ability, so that the child has a chance to improve without becoming frustrated, but equally it needs to be meaty enough to be interesting. Many reading schemes come ready colour coded for abilities which provide teachers with the pitch with which to target a group with. As they are often phonically decodable, scheme books can provide a ‘safe’ experience to guide a reader through and often provide questions for the teachers. However, if heavily relied upon, and not mixed in with ‘real’ books, scheme books can be very ‘samey’, as sometimes they have very similar formats, not lending themselves to questions which probe deeper into the text, those of AF3 or AF6 for example. Picture books can be brilliant for this, especially those which are for older readers as the illustrations can provide an excellent base for inferential evidence.
Whilst the guided group is working with the teacher, the rest of the class should be working on reading activities independently. These activities should be chosen carefully to engage children, whilst giving them an opportunity to read at length and apply any specific skills taught during the guided session with the teacher. With children who are able to work independently this is an ideal opportunity to encourage use of reading journals for children ton record responses to text. Tasks can be linked to assessment foci and can support the objective that was covered within the guided session.
The main use of guided reading records are to collect observations and formative assessment to inform teaching. Ensure you have a format to do this. We have examples on our website of record keeping that teachers are free to use, adapt and download. www.theliteracytree.co.uk/downloads/GuidedReadingAssessmentandRecordKeeping.pdf
However, with all this organisation in mind, we need to make sure we are giving ourselves time as teachers to enjoy the process – reading is not something which can be too rigidly planned and often it is difficult to anticipate the responses we may get from a text. One of the key phrases in education at the moment is to promote ‘reading for enjoyment’. We can use guided reading to support this to happen, but first we need to make sure we are modelling the enjoyment of reading to our children.
