Guided Reading - talk to me, how do you do it?

[MrsHandles]

I've been given the task of improving Guided Reading as I mentioned to HT that I thought what we had was good, but we're not using it in the best way.

We currently use Bug Club (the one with the paper workbooks) but find that some of the tasks aren't relevant to what we need.

So, how do you tackle guided reading in your school and what do you use? I'm in a primary and need some ideas to go back to HT with.

Thank you, oh wise Mumsnet!

[rollonthesummer]

I hate guided reading!!

[MrsHandles]

So do I rollon! Pointless task in my opinion, however I have been blessed with the improvement of it "seeing as I find it currently not up to scratch." wish I could get rid of it altogether.

[SureIusedtobetaller]

We use age appropriate texts and all the kids read the same book- you have to read a lot to the lower achievers. Then they have questions at their level- retrieval for lowers and a lot of why/how do you know for highers.
It's not perfect- no non fiction for starters. Teacher does a group a day then they do the questions the day after.
Lots of schools are doing whole class guided reading now apparently. I like the idea of that as the poorer kids will gain from hearing ideas from the others.

[MrsHandles]

Sounds quite similar to what we do Sure

[SureIusedtobetaller]

The books are actual novels rather than levelled texts. Not sure how I feel about it. I really don't like reading the same chapter 5x a week...

[MrsHandles]

It just gets so dull, doesn't it?!

[phlebasconsidered]

I hate guided reading.

My plan, for year two, will be a carousel of these activities.

1. Read with me.
   
2. Follow up dark in GR book.
   
3. Story bag independent write: I've got a big bag of laminated cut outs from old books and the kids pick out a character, a setting, and a few verbs and bound and have to write about them. I need a lot more free writing to assess and this is my solution. TA, if I have one, to be here.
   
4. Role play area with a challenge they have to read and respond to. Like writing a prescription for a penguin in the Arctic survey module I am building.
   
5. Grammar or spelling Boggle.

[WombatStewForTea]

We use bug club texts but not the god awful resources. This year we've made the move in upper ks2 to move to whole class reading using a reciprocal reading approach. The first thing we did was go through the bug club texts and decide which were quality enough to use and the rest got hidden in a cupboard.
Lower ks2 are still using small group reading but again using reciprocal reading.
So much better and kids have made loads of progress.

[MrsHandles]

The paper workbooks for BugClub can be so hit and miss. My Y3s love doing the vocab pages, but I find there's too much emphasis on writing (days 4/5 anyone?) and not enough reading/decoding/understanding of the texts. Sadly, my school are very hard on presentation and so you will see staff photocopying pages for the children to redo as it's not neat enough and are scared of being reprimanded (staff not children!)

I wish there was a magic guided reading scheme that covered everything we need in an interesting way and not bloody page after page of waffle

[whatsleep]

I'm ashamed to say I love guided read sessions! We use individual text extracts that come with a teachers guide describing what kind of questions to ask. I. Start by reading the text, which is usually from the middle if a book. The children then try and figure out what is happening, using evidence in the text to back up their theory. Other children may disagree and give their respasining. The text will have a box at the end where the children need to write the next part, it must be in keeping with the style of the story and make sense. The questions I ask look at retrieval of info, inference as to characters feelings why events may have happened, what the author is trying to imply etc. I will find out where the resource is from and post tomorrow, and you can see if they help at all!

[GraceGrape]

I don't like it, but do think the children seem to benefit from the focused time in a small group. I try to vary depending on what the children in each group need. We usually focus on a short story, poem or piece of nonfiction for a few weeks rather than reading the same book each week, but I have upper KS2. It was harder with KS1 as they could only read simpler texts. We do quite a bit if vocabulary work as poor vocab is an issue in my school.

Have you heard of Reciprocal Reading? Seems to be a thing round here at the moment. Essentially it follows a structure where you teach the children to lead group discussions themselves. It's got some good ideas but I didn't get on with it myself.

[GraceGrape]

Bit of vocabulary work

[GraceGrape]

I don't do any writing as we are quite writing-heavy in our literacy lessons. If I want them to write anything down, we use whiteboards so presentation doesn't matter.

[MrsHandles]

whatsleep the name of your resources would be great, thanks!
Thank you everyone for your contributions so far, it's making interesting reading.

[suze28]

We do whole class guided reading lessons, we haven't done the carousel of activities for a few years now. Have a look at the Mrs P Teach blog as she has a lot of guidance and experience with this. I teach yr3/4 and have found it's had a huge impact on the quality of reading responses from the children.

[MyDressIsBold]

We also hate Guided Reading

We combine a carousel with Reciprocal Reading.
1 - Reciprocal Reading group with teacher
2 - Comprehension, sometimes from books, sometimes on ipads
3 - A writing prompt group, using words gained from reading
4 - Reading for pleasure
5 - Past Reading paper questions

I was a bit cynical about Reciprocal Reading but the children love it and our results have improved. It's reasonably easy to train them into it so I'm happy with that.

[MrsHandles]

Thank you all for suggestions and advice. I'll go back to head with various bits. If he likes it, he'll pass it off as his own idea in a staff meeting. If he doesn't (and likely he won't as it's not come from SLT) he'll shut me down before I even begin.

[MissusBea]

Some really helpful ideas here, posting to mark my place.

[PetyrBaelish]

My school has just started trialling whole class reading for UKS2, possibly to be extended to LKS2 as well. It's nice because everyone is involved in an ongoing decent story and the lowers hear the highers giving answers which impacts positively on them. The teacher's assessment focus shifts to a different table for each session. Everyone prefers it so far.

[123fushia]

I presently teach in Y3, and have had years of guided reading carousel activities in other year groups from Y1-Y6.
Presently, I have a guided reading session after lunch each day. 5 days and 5 groups = 1 guided read per week. I select a text at a slightly higher level than the group are reading at. We have lots of sets of books at each level. The other children in the class......wait for it......do silent reading! They have 25 minutes to enjoy a book. These can be their own home reading books, or choose from the book corner. I have a selection of soft toys - book buddies which some children hold whilst they read. I select a 'Silent Manager" to sit with the 5 min timer and watch the other children. When the five mins is up, they choose the quietest child who has been reading silently to be the next silent manager, and so it goes on. I have undisturbed time (mostly) with my group, and the others spend some quality time with their own books. I even have time to sign and comment in planners, and a guided reading assessment sheet! Should have done this year's ago- and not a comprehension/spelling sheet to mark in sight! X

[MrsHandles]

123fushia that is the stuff of dreams, you lucky thing to be allowed to do that!

[Griffintoes]

We're hopefully moving over to whole-class guided reading next year - I can't wait! A carousel is great if you have motivated, semi-well-behaved pupils, but I work in a 'challenging' school, and spend most of the session trying to control the kids doing the self-directed activities (no TA). We have BugClub on the computers which the kids love, but as with anything it's the higher and more motivated ones who actually use it properly. The rest of them are just madly clicking to get coins, or trying to get on Roblox!

I agree with Petyr above about the benefits of whole-class reading. When I've done it for the odd thing (like to prepare for an author visit), it's been brilliant and the kids have loved it and been learning! Rather than having one group learning and the rest of them doing busy work.

[ElfrideSwancourt]

What is reciprocal reading?
We tried a whole class reader this year (Y3) but the reading abilities of the class varied so much that it didn't work and we had to go back to groups/ carousel.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I'd second the idea to look at the idea to look at MrsPTeach's blog. As is Rhoda Wilson's blog. Especially the one on moving beyond comprehension sheets.

Doug Lemov's Reading reconsidered might be worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy.

blogs.hertsforlearning.co.uk/2016/07/13/this-years-ks2-reading-test-a-secret-shared-and-some-questions-to-ask/

blogs.hertsforlearning.co.uk/2017/06/05/2017-ks2-reading-paper-a-secret-shared-and-some-questions-to-ask-a-year-on/

These two blogs from Herts have links to question stems for guided reading which might be useful.

If the school are insistent on guided reading you might not have much choice, but some of the ideas from these could help to make it better.

[123fushia]

Mrs Handles - yes. Not an agreed approach by whole school but the results show very good progress so who can argue?