Should good readers be having guided reading in Yr 2?

[notyummy]

Just wondering really, as DD claims she hasn't read to the teacher or TA since they started back at school. Now I realise a. that may be one version of the truth and not correct, and b. it's still early days....but I am curious as to what common practice is?

Context is that DD is a very good reader. Not a genius but very keen on books etc. Free reading about 3 months into Yr1. Very fluent, reads with real understanding and flare for language. She picks books at school and she reads them with us every evening (we write up in homework diary), as well as other books from the library that she reads in bed at night/in the morning. So we know she is reading - but weren't sure what we should be expecting from school. In most ways it is a good school and we have been pretty happy with the provision and her progress thus far. Quite big classes though, so I wonder if this is forcing teachers to concentrate resources where they perceive children are struggling? I know from chatting to a friend that a group of children are all having 15 extra individual phonics everyday because they need to 'catch up' a bit. Which sounds eminently sensible - maybe this is temporary and when it ends more general reading practice will resume?

Just interested in any reflections/experiences.

If you are happy with 40%+ that's OK then

mrz I think you have mentioned in other posts that your end of year 2 L3 results are 30-40% or thereabouts. Unless you've had a sudden boost from reading Shakespeare.

And yes, I am happy with 40-50% L3 as it happens.

Personally, I believe children should learn in achievable steps and should not feel demeaned. Guided reading allows children to read at a higher level, within a group of similar ability, where children don't feel threatened.

Surely the children only expected to read a couple of sentences will lose all self-esteem as they hear other children fluently rattling off pages and pages of text? However kindly they're treated, and however sensitive the teacher, Y2 children are very aware of the comparative abilities in the class. I don't want to embarrass the less able.

I think if you asked our pupils they would tell you that they look forward to reading interesting and yes challenging texts and aren't in the slightest demeaned. The fact that every child regardless of ability is eager to read during these sessions seems to indicate that you couldn't be more wrong.
The children are rightly proud of themselves however much they read and their peers encourage and praise rather than mock. Perhaps that says a lot about the ethos of the school.

I didn't say children would mock other children - I'm sure they wouldn't. I was looking at it from the point of view of the less able readers.

Y2 children are aware of the hierarchy of ability (i.e. less able readers are aware that other children read better then them), and, when asked to read in a whole class situation, surely the less able readers lose self esteem.

I imagine that even you have a couple of children who will end Y2 at L1 or 2C,
and I find it difficult to envisage that these children would enjoy (or have a useful learning experience) from reading a couple of words of the Spiderwick Chronicles.

Last year I had a child arrive who struggled to read pink level in September ... by February her's was the first hand up to read and by the end of the year she had made 2 full levels progress in reading, so I would dispute that she and other children didn't get anything out of the experience.

To be honest, as long as a school has carefully-planned reading provision in place which means that every child has
a) high quality reading teaching - as in the skills of comprehension, inference etc as well as the skills of decoding.
b) the opportunity to practise these skills on a very regular basis - whether through reading an individual book, a class book, a group book or simply a text on the board and
c) exposure to a wide range of high quality texts - through their own reading (whether that be individual or in groups or round a class) and through being read to and
d) interventions which address any difficulties that arise rapidly and effectively

then it doesn't matter exactly how reading is organised - 1 to 1 reading, guided reading in a group or reading round a class.

A failure would be a 'you can read now, just keep on swapping your book as you finish it' approach - a kind of aimless drift (hopefully slowly upwards). In the end, whether high-quality teaching of reading is individual, whole class or group-based doesn't really matter, it's the high quality plannedness of it that will make it a success.

(For what it's worth, we have a 'mixed economy' approach - a lot of 1 to 1 especially for targeted interventions, guided reading for every child once a week (also a time for very valuable targeted activities for the non-reading-with-an-adult groups), and every child reads something aloud to the class every day, even if it's only a learning objective from the board)

Guided reading would be difficult as we don't group children by ability

Exactly, mrz - that is a choice that your school makes, and therefore you develop a planned approach to the excellent teaching of reading within that approach. We have flexible groupings (every child works with at least 5 different groups each day) and this our mixed economy works well for our planned approach to the teaching of reading. Another school which works with more rigid groups might find guided reading the best way to deliver their excellent reading teaching.

The grouping isn't what makes it bad or good teaching. It's the planning and ambition - and the taking into account the exposure of all children to good books during every school day, whether read or read to - that matters.

this = thus, 2nd row down. Sorry.

Claifying a bit further - because it's Friday:

Guided reading can be a vehicle for the high quality teaching of reading, as long as it doesn't get in the way of all children having access to high quality texts to read or listen to the reading of (so if the top group gets good books, and the botton group never hears reading of anything other than Biff and Chip, that would be a problem.

Individual reading can be a vehicle for the high quality teaching of reading, with the proviso about quality texts as above PLUS making certain that the individual reading is about teaching, not just about 'hearing a reader while having one ear on something else'.

Whole class reading can be a vehicle for the high quality teaching of reading, as long as all children are given the support and teaching they need to access it and to make individual progress during it.

As long as the teaching of reading is good, one or a mixture of the above are all possible ways of delivering it - in the same way as whole-class teaching or predominantly group work are both effective teaching strategies and the balance between them will depend on a variety of factors in the individual school concerned.

I agree with all that teacher except for the whole class teaching of reading. I cannot imagine my 4 bouncy, less able boy readers being able to sustain a whole class reading session, particularly as they would only be participating with a couple of sentences each (probably supported by the teacher). I can't square how that would help with their progress in reading.

As teacherwith2kids has said we provide 1-1 reading instruction (with a teacher) and engage at high quality texts as a class (which I have found to have a significant impact on understanding, especially inference and on writing vocabulary).
alcofrolic I'm assuming you have no experience of this type of whole class reading or you would know that all children are participating for the whole of the session not just what it is their turn to read aloud. They certainly aren't sitting passively waiting for their turn. They are following the text, discussing, asking and answering questions and most of all engaging with books. What I've also found when we read Percy Jackson and Spiderwick was that many of the children actually asked parents to buy them the next book in the series to read at home (some asked me to buy them so they could borrow them ... thank goodness for Amazon!).

dd1 just spent part of a hard-earned Amazon voucher on buying the book they are having in whole class reading, so she can read it more/quicker/again.

Phillip Pullman, and they all - including the restless boys - love it.

MRZ - I am fascinated by your account of reading Shakespeare with Year 2. How did you do this? Did they take parts and read it out (as I remember doing when in ~year 6)? How did they manage the language, and follow the plot?

I am genuinely curious. DS1 (7 and in y3) is an able reader, although not exceptional (eg he independently read King Solomon's Mines, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth amongst many other books this summer). His school didn't do SATS, so I don't know where he is in terms of ability nationally although he is in the top 2/3 for English in his non-selective prep (I'm a bit worried now, after reading your post tbh!)

He is nowhere near being able to read the Tempest - even with support. He would probably be able to decode it, but I don't think he would be able to follow the plot. I had thought that it would be at least 3/4 years until he even started on Shakespeare. How would you go about introducing a fairly able 7yo to Shakespeare?

A 7 year old reading, enjoying and comprehending King Solomon's Mines and Journey To the Centre of the Earth, unless they are very abridged versions, is A) more than just able, and B) perfectly capable of taking on The Tempest with support!

Whether any of these books is suitable for a 7 year old is another debate!

Do you think so? he certainly did follow the plot of both journey to the centre of the earth and King Solomon's mines (full versions) - couldn't put either book down! But he wouldn't have understood all of the subtle inferences, witticisms etc. I'm sure he will return to most of the books he is reading now in a few years, and get even more out of them! TBH I had forgotten just how gruesome king solomon's mines, especially is . I will be more careful what he gets hold of in future. Sorry - hijack over.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is, in its original French, very standard primary school reading in France. My DSSs, who both attended their local state primary and started to learn to read aged 6/Y2, read it in Y5 in class along with the rest of their classmates. The Tempest is not standard primary-school fare.

alcofrolic,

When you read a good book to your class, question them, get them to predict alternative endings, talk about the characters, look at the punctuation and language used etc, are your less able readers disengaged? Certainly in my class - we typically have c. 35% SEN in every class, so you're not talking high ability on average - every child loves it and is fully engaged during those sessions.

I imagine Mrz's whole class reading being very similar, just with the children reading the text rather than an adult sharing it - we do the same for short sections of the book in some lessons, mixed with sessions when I share the book. Even if the children only read a sentence each, they are all involved in the story and the characters and the comprehension questioning and studying the punctuation or whatever our planned focus is for that lesson.

But wouldn't it take forever; not only having to wait for each child to read, (including those who are very slow and would need help to pronounce the words), waiting for their turn, wondering when their turn will be, having the children (including the slowest) follow the text while the better readers read the longer pieces, so they know where to come in if they are asked; but also further interuptions for questioning, and then looking at punctuation (I would have thought it best to know about punctuation before tackling these demanding texts) surely they would lose the plot (in both senses of the term).

Cecily, if well organised, I should imagine not much longer than a teacher sharing a book with the class - which is something that all good primary teachers do as a matter of course - because that also involves gaps for questioning, children's responses etc.

Guided reading, done well, takes 20 - 30 minutes per group, and this is built into the school timetable (I take a group, the others do carefully-planned independent activities, some are taken for specific interventions to address learning issues ... sometimes i steal a little time from asembly at the end of a day to really move a group forward). If replaced by whole-class reading for 20 - 30 minutes per day, that would be no more time consuming?

It takes 20-30 mins to read a chapter (or two) CecilyP.

shakespeare.palomar.edu/lambtales/Lttemp.htm
The Tempest has everything for children, a wizard with a beautiful daughter, a monster, a shipwreck, spirits and a happy ending.

www.amazon.co.uk/Tempest-Shakespeare-Stories-Andrew-Matthews/dp/1841213462

with extracts from the original work just for the music and pattern of the words.

Thanks mrz !