Always a topic that promotes animated discussion . Guided reading. How many groups? How often? What do the other groups do? How do you ensure progress? How do you manage it?
We have guided reading sessions daily, 20 minutes. That's a lot of the week when you look at it in its total. So it has to be meaningful to justify that amount of time .
I read an interesting piece this week which you can find
here courtesy of @prawnseye
There are so many strategies being used
out there for guided reading. I was observed in our recent Ofsted for an
entire guided reading session which had good feedback so I hope that you can
use some of the ideas.
(My class are a muxed year 4, 5 class. All
classes follow a similar format in KS2 )
There are five groups which rotate throughout the week. Children
are grouped according to their ability and moved into different groups if
appropriate during the year.
Group activities:
1) Guided reading- with an adult (teacher or
TA) using a range of fiction and non fiction texts concentrating on AFs . We have
various resources which suggest questions to use for the different AFs. We use
some commercial guided reading scheme books alongside sets of books both fiction
and non fiction. For example this term I using Michael Morpurgo’s Butterfly
Lion with one group and The Hodgeheg (Dick Kng Smith ) with another. Records
are kept each session to record responses (AF linked) which is used to assist
tracking.
2) Reading Journals- each child has a reading
journal in which they keep activity sheets. These were produced by a previous
LA advisor and tie in to AFs. We also have various “take your pick” activities
for non fiction and fiction which the children complete independently. Sometimes
this might be an activity linked to a class read. (For example during Ofsted
this group were writing a first person account linked to the class story “The
Indian in the Cupboard- Lynne Reid Banks. The inspector had asked me later why
I had not scaffolded the work as it was fairly challenging and I explained its
purpose was to establish their understanding and had been specifically designed
to be an independent task. Positive feedback given.) We devote two of the
sessions to reading journal time.
3) Spellings/Handwriting The children use
this time to practice their weekly spellings and to complete handwriting
exercises. Each child has a folder for this.
4) Independent reading. This time is for the children
to read ANYTHING of their choice or to listen to an audio book (I am slowly
building a collection) They don’t have to write anything at all J
Some children who have difficulties with their reading have more
time on guided reading , but all children have time to read books of their choosing.
It takes a bit of setting up at the start of the year- even though we do it all
the way through the school the start of the new academic year is always like
starting again from scratch! However, the initial effort is well worth it.
Children make very good progress with their reading and the vast majority enjoy
reading.
The new curriculum wont necessitate a huge change in the way we
carry out our guided reading sessions.
One of the most useful tips I can pass on is that I always write
down the questions/AFs I am going to focus on a week in advance. This makes for
far more structured and focused sessions. I also trained up my TAs by working with
them to begin with so that they could take groups as well; this frees me up to
hear readers or talk to the children during some sessions. Throughout the year
groups change so that I will have worked with them all at some point.
Thanks for taking the time to read; I’d love to hear your
views/opinions on this.
Some resources and ideas on pinterest
here
A "how to " guide for the children
here
More views and ideas
here
