Guided Reading in Infant Schools

[3LittleMonkeys]

Please can anyone advise me, I have been looking at schools for DS, and a couple of them only use Guided Reading in the classroom and you are expected to do all of the individual reading at home. The Guided Reading happens once a week. Are any schools that your DC's attend doing this and how has it worked. Positive and Negative opinions would be great as not all schools I could send my DS follow this program.

Thank you

[TheHonEnid]

I dont know what it is

we do reading every night with dd1 and dd2 and they are listened to at achool every day although I think this is quite rare (state but v small classes)(

[stuffitllama]

Hi there's just been a thread on the benefits and pragmatics of daily one-to-one reading rather than just guided. I'm all in favour of one-to-one but it's always going to be difficult for teachers to listen to every child every day. But there should be one-to-one with a teacher at some point if only for assessment! And as for guided reading only once a week I don't think that's enough. Can you ask the school whether they allow parents to go in to school and read with the children. That way all the kids will read one to one, four or five times a week. If the teacher and TA don't read with them, and parents aren't allowed, I would be v unhappy.

[3LittleMonkeys]

Thank you for your replies - I agree that there should be one to one with the teacher, but in your experiance how often should that be to ensure that the children's progress is not affected? Are there any teachers who currently run this method?

Thanks

[stuffitllama]

maybe you could keep bumping for martian bishop -- she knows about these things from the other side

i think one to one at school with just about ANYONE, not necessarily the teacher, does the job to be honest. I have a glimmer of a memory from the other thread of somebody whose teacher managed to read with each child once a week..

sorry can't be more help.. but do ask about joining/setting up a reading rota!

[LIZS]

I think guided reading is used to improve children's confidence and understanding of what they are reading as it provides material for disucssion and further work. Ours don't do it until Year 2/3 up until then it is 1 to 1 - with teacher, TA or parent helper and at home - but with large class sizes it may not always be possible to do as regularly. Are you sure it isn't only once reading skills are established and think it could be hard to manage in the early stages, perhaps on top of the Literacy Hour.

[Littlefish]

When I taught Reception, each group did guided reading with me once a week. In this time, we worked on specific reading skills e.g. phonics, comprehension, characterisation, predicting etc. The children in the guided reading group were all of similar ability.

In addition to this, each child was heard once on their own either by me or the TA. If I had a parent helper, I would ask them to hear specific children who either didn't read very much at home, or, in spite of lots of reading at home, would still benefit from extra support. I kept a note of who I had heard and who the TA had heard so that I could keep rotating.

However, hearing a child read individually is not how they learn to read, it's the time when they practice reading.

The teaching of reading happens through daily phonics/literacy teaching either in small groups or whole class.

[stuffitllama]

Littlefish I think children in your class were really lucky -- one-to-one with a teacher AND guiding reading with a teacher every week is quite unusual nowadays isn't it?
But I would say 3 monkeys that saying one-to-one is practising rather than learning doesn't mean to downgrade the importance of reading one to one, I'm sure as a teacher littlefish wouldn't want to do that! They do learn lots when they're reading one to one, they learn new words and meanings and letter combinations and letter combination sounds. That's why children with a lot of one to one reading are better readers than children who have had the same "learning time" but less one to one. They haven't just practised what they know, they know more and different stuff. They've read more words, and some will be new and some will have new letter combinations and that's just the way it is. And anyway sometimes it's so hard for a parent to do all the one to one successfully.

[Littlefish]

Stuffitllama, I don't mean that reading one-to-one isn't important, it's just not the be-all and end-all of reading and thus, it can be done by any adult in the classroom who has an understanding of the basics of phonics/reading, it really doesn't have to be the teacher. The teaching of reading, as far as I am concerned, is done at other times.

For me, individual reading was just about "hearing" a child read ie. checking progress so that I knew what to plan for the next guided reading session, small group session or whole class session. There simply isn't time to actually do any teaching during a one-to-one session beyond supporting a child to correct a word or ask a few questions to check they understand what they're reading.

[Twiglett]

DS' school only do guided reading once a week ... and it's standard for books to be sent home.

He's just turned 7, in year 2 and reading chapter books to himself "just one more chapter mummy".

He couldn't read in reception but grasped phonics, moved past blending phonics and blending quickly. I'd say that reading actually clicked by first term of year 1 (so he would have been 5 and 8 months)

don't sweat it, reading comes into everything in school .. it's not just segregated to one session once a week

[hippipotami]

Dd is in reception at a fab infant school. She will do reading in her group once a week, this is called Guided Reading.
She will also read either to the TA or to the teacher on her own once a week. Both sessions are recorded in her reading diary so I can read about her progress.
She gets a book home twice a week for reading with my or dh. We then also record this in her reading diary.

All in all works well

[3LittleMonkeys]

Thank you for all the replies. As long as I also read with my child is doesn't seem to affect the childs reading, As the school is the nearest that used only Guided Reading it looks like I will put that as the first and just look forward to plenty of reading with DS, hopefully it will be enjoyable and not a battle of wills!!

[slayerette]

DS is in Reception and he has one to one reading about four times a week, judging by the comments in his diary. This is either key words or reading books. He gets about six reading books a week in his book bag - two at a time. All this is with the TAs though - I don't know if he ever reads to his teacher. However, the TAs are fab and give him so much encouragement.

[nix66]

Hi, My dd's school recently brought in Guided reading, and it is used throughout the school from Reception to yr2. Each class has "streamed" groups for literacy and once a week each group sit down with their teacher and read from a particular text (obviously geared for their ability) and then they discuss it and often do other work based on this text. For example a few weeks ago dd read from Little Red Riding Hood in her group and then they did follow on work about it, made puppets, wrote their own story based on it etc (btw dd is in yr 1). We were assured that the teacher will read with a child once a week but definitely once every two weeks. Many mums weren't too happy with this but as long as plenty of parent helpers come in throughout the week to listen to dc read then they usually read individually 2-3 times a week sometimes more... As it's a new scheme for dd's school I shall wait and see how it affects dd's reading. I still read with her every day and will continue to so, so I don't think that it will really affect her that much. Hope this helps.

[coppertop]

Ds2 is in Reception and does guided reading once a week. He reads with a TA every 2 weeks. It doesn't sound like a lot but it seems to work well for ds2 and he's making good progress under this system. The teacher makes sure that he is on the right book level for him so that it's neither too difficult nor too boring.

[stuffitllama]

Nix 66 has illustrated my concern about guided reading.

A lot of the time it's not reading.

Nix is so right.. you need people in there, listening to readers in school if the teacher and TA aren't doing it. (er which they quite often can't do, I understand that). Guided reading isn't a decent sub for one to one reading.

I think one to one reading IS the be all and end all actually. Am putting a as that sounds aggressive sorry! You can teach a child to read with one to one even if you don't have any of the other stuff. But the other stuff won't work if you don't have one to one.