Group reading in Reception?

[jgjgjg]

DD (just 5, in Reception) has apparently bern doing 'group reading' a couple of times a week. There are 4 of them in the group and they go outside to the corridor with the teaching assistant to do it. The TA I believe is highly qualified so I don't have an issue with that. And DD is fine with it, she's not complaining.

DD is coming on well with reading, can reliably sound out 3 letter CVC words and usually 4 letter words with adjacent consonants, knows the 45 high frequency words from the list she's been given (yes I know that list is an outdated concept) but doesn't always know some of them in other contexts, and she hasn't covered some of the vowel diagraphs yet from Jolly Phonics.

Her teacher acknowledges that she's very mature for her age so would happily sit still for the duration, take turns, follow the words with her finger when it's not her turn, etc.

But I've never heard of group reading being used in Reception before? Is it really an effective technique at that stage?

She reads to me at home every night so she does get plenty of opportunities to read one-to-one, but obviously not all parents manage to do that and the teacher doesn't know she does that as she often reads a home book if her school one hasn't been changed, which doesn't get noted in her reading diary.

My DD did group reading (guided reading) in reception last year although she was still listened to 121 by her teacher every week.

Guided reading is a handful of kids at the same/or similar level who all take turns and answer comprehension questions etc.

However I would expect a child learning to read to be listened 121 at school too.

she ought to be doing one to one reading to a member of staff/parent helper IMO at this age.

Our school from what I can work out (one child in reception, one in Yr) do individual reading twice a week in reception (normally once to TA or sometimes teacher and once to student or helper), get an extra book change a week if needed (so 3 in total) and they do reading on the white board as a whole class. This is the case all the way through reception year. DD1 was very advanced reader and still just joined in the whole class reading. In Yr1 DD1 has just started to do group/guided reading (I am not sure which) but the whole class seems to be doing books the same level so 8 levels below her personal reading level however she does read individually 3 times a week to the TA.

My 2 always do home books in addition to school books and I write them in their reading record as well so I will put in the school one and comments about that and then underneath put what they have read in addition to it. I think it is important it is logged but people have said on here some schools don't like it.

At dd's school reading was mainly in groups during reception but now she's in y1 they have individual reading every week. It seems to have worked pretty well, she has come on quickly in both classes and we read with her at home too.

jgjgjg:

Group reading most likely won't be the only reading your child will be doing in class and there will certainly be one to one reading sessions (although previously teachers posting here have said that really there is only time to audit reading on a one to one basis about once a half-term). So this will most likely be a daily reading group of similar ability children that progresses through whatever reading programme the school might be following.

The fact that they are taken out of the class is a good thing. This is about working quietly without other disruptions. It happens very frequently at my DDs' school and is used for all abilities - from struggling to high achieving groups.

It sounds to me like your DD is way ahead of many Year R pupils (many of whom have no reading skills on arrival and are slow to gain them - remember this is only 8 weeks into term now). So part of this may well be about getting higher level teaching to high ability pupils but doing it in such a way as not to discourage less able pupils.

Having had a child who really struggled to learn to read I can assure you that she found reading in groups with children who were very far ahead of her ability incredibly daunting. In fact, she began to be frightened of being asked to read aloud.

We've got through it now - but the reality is children learn at all sorts of different speeds and come to school with all sorts of different ability levels and the point in Class R is to help all the children be positive about learning and enthusiastic to try - so separating out higher ability children is one means of achieving that for the entire cohort.

HTH

Thanks for that. Yeh it seems to be working okay, I just don't remember my eldest starting group reading in Reception, it was one-to-one only as far as I remember, and he was further ahead with reading at the same stage than DD is.

She does read occasionally one-to-one to TA or teacher, about once a week I'd say so far. Plus occasional reading from 'big' shared class story books etc.

I guess I'm just trying to make sure she's not being short-changed, because there are 20 in her class this year whereas historically there have only been a maximum of 18 in Reception in her school.

The staff do have a difficult job because some children (like DD) were at nursery there last year and so covered basic phonics so most of them are blending and recognizing some common words, to varying degrees, whereas 6 children have joined from outside and mainly hadn't done any focused phonic work before they started.

Sounds like it's not something to make a fuss about then.

I think the guided reading is brilliant. At DS' school there are lots of different abilities across the 30 kids (1 teacher, 1 nqt and 1 ta) so 27 are doing phonics. Ds + 1 other are in with the highest group of Y1s and the other child must be in a different ability group. All the Y1 kids do it so that the are getting appropriate teaching so it is the opposite of short changing imo!

Not had a parents evening yet tho so I don't know what other reading is happening (aside from our 3 library books sent home each week).

Nursery started ds on phonics a year ago and we just did what they told us to do to support him but I was surprised that his reading seems to have come on so quickly - the reading group seems to have been a huge boost to.his confidence.... I think he was not keen to show how much he knew before. Can't rate it highly enough.