Guided reading - what is it?

[MollieO]

Having seen the free reading post I'd be grateful to know what this is. We have parents' evening this week and I think it might be helpful to know what guided reading actually involves. I know that it goes on in my ds's reception class (from other mum's telling me how much their dcs love it) but I don't know and ds doesn't seem to know either.

Guided Reading is when children are grouped according to their reading ability and read books from the reading scheme set to this level. In our school groups will then read with the teacher at least once a week, they will be asked questions on the text and the types of questions will differ depending on their age and abilty.

My experience is KS2 so for example I'd read with a group and from this be able to assess the development of their reading and any problems they were encountering. I'd also ask them questions on the text, normally inference questions, e.g. 'why do you think this character did this'. They then would have a written task about the text for the next day or two.

I think at Reception the groups read with the teacher more frequently than once a week because they are developing thier reading at a faster pace. The questioning would also be more appropriate to their level. Hope that helps, ask the teacher at Parents Evening to explain how it works in your ds's class, I'm sure they'd be happy to explain.

Thanks RachieW. He does reading every day with the TA but I know from the comments that she puts in his reading diary that he doesn't get stretched so I'm not really sure what guided reading adds to the individual reading he actually does already. What I mean by that is he will read a couple of pages with her and then do the rest of the book at home. He flies through the book with me so I wonder how much time he actually spends with her and how much time he does guided reading. He seems to get on better when he reads individually with his teacher but that only happens once a week at most (better than a lot of schools I know but its a pre-prep so only 15 in the class). Think I've come up with stuff to ask so thanks for this

DD's school doesn't do guided reading, only individual one to one reading.

But the school I work at does it. I am in a Y1 class. Ability based groups of children who read with the teacher or TA, about once a week. They talk about the book, characters, what happens next, punctuation, particular letter sounds, etc - depends ont he target for that group that week.

Agree with Rachie and Hulababy.

It's a way of increasing their comprehension of the text rather than just their reading of it. It's an excellent teaching tool if used correctly but many schools don't do it due to lack of timetable space.

At KS2 they also look at things such as the language of tension and suspense. Writing alternative endings or looking at the story from a different viewpoint such as having another character narrate.

As you're in the independent sector though, their interpretation may be different so best to ask.

DD's school is independent and may be one of reasons why they don;t do it. The teacher is able to hear individual readers for a few minutes every day due to class size.

They do share books together as a class, and they talk about the literacy side of things in that way instead.

Different schools will work it in different ways.