Whole class guided reading

[Pos1]

Does anyone do this? How does it look in practice? I am interested in moving to it rather than the carousel but I've not sure where to start. I'm an nqt at the moment so don't have a lot of experience to draw on. I'm in Year 3 in case that makes a difference....

[MakeAWhish]

I'm an LSA and my teacher does whole class guided reading. All children have a copy of the book and one per table reads an extract (Monday) all answer questions about the text (Tuesday) focus on SPAG (weds) etc. I think it works far better than carousel which can turn chaotic. This is in year 4.

[notsurewhatshappening]

I've done both and much prefer carousel. I can manage it on my own with no TA but they are a very well behaved class.

Whole class guided reading was too hard to differentiate, I found. I ended up rewriting texts to fit the needs of groups which was labour intensive!

[burblife]

Yes we've recently moved to it. Each child has their own book. Style of reading varies...me reading extracts, paired reading, children round robin reading, silent reading. Rotation of skills covered through the week can include - comprehension Qs, vocabulary work, drama activities, predict and check, character profiles etc.

I like it. It's far simpler to resource and plan. We don't differentiate much - I give some children extra help with comprehension Qs during the lesson. Sometimes I read extracts and do vocab checks to lower ability readers in a small group before they complete the task.

[GetTheGoodLookingGuy]

We moved to it as a whole school this time last year (Juniors). Each child has a book, and a session usually involves the teacher reading, and "tagging" children into read a paragraph or so and then the teacher taking over again, or tagging in another child. Once they get used to it (our new class aren't quite there yet!) it's fairly seemless - the children have to be following along all the time, and the teacher just says their name at the end of the paragraph, and they take over almost immediately. When the teacher takes over again, they don't stop them, just start reading over the top of them, and the child stops. Sometimes, the children read a page or two with their talk partners too.

We do comphrension questions every lesson, which the children discuss with their partners and then feedback to the class - we use RIC, so one question is just retrieving an answer from the text, one is inference, and the third is about the author's choice (ie why did they use questions - what effect does it have on the reader).

Once a week we do a written outcome - this can be written comphrension questions (new class are struggling with this, so we've had to do lots of modeling), a prediction, dictionary work, "agree/disagree/undecided" statements, where they have to state their choice and back it up with evidence from the text.

Reading test results were hugely improved from Christmas (only had half a term of whole class guided reading) to the end of the year. Year 6 SATS results were much higher, too.

As a year group, we have four books and half a term's non-fiction in a year (one book is really long and needs a whole term). These are rotated so no class is doing the same book at the same time. I do wonder how long the books will last, though - the book our class is reading at the moment is on its fourth read (read by all three classes last year and now ours this year) and we've already had a couple of books falling apart, and almost all of them need new plastic covers.

[SunflowerJo08]

A good way of rounding off a guided reading lesson is to spend the last ten minutes listening to a continuation of the story in audiobook form; this takes the pressure off of the children, allows them to wind down after a potentially confusing and noisy lesson (if they are reading aloud in tables), and also really helps them to make the different characters more real and establish them in their minds. Is great if it is read by a voice they may recognise, too.

[lovelyjubilly]

I don't understand how whole-class guided reading would work tbh. How is it physically possible to guide 30 pupils simultaneously?

[Wednesdaypig]

Imagine being 9 and knowing that a book you find boring you have to read for the whole term! Reminds me of horrid heart-sinking moments in Eng Lit as we all reached for Northanger Abbey yet again. Carousel all the way! At least with a group of 6 you can pitch books more accurately re interests/text difficulty. I am KS1 so probably wouldn't work for us particularly well?