can anyone tell me what a guided read is?

[sylar]

DS's reading diary says they have done a guided read but DS says they just did reading and Im not sure what the difference is

ds does guided reading. I have no idea either, but he says they go out of the room in a small group and read to someone.?

It's a small-group reading session with lots of teacher input. Helpful Wikipedia entry:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_reading

For guided reading in my class the children are divided into groups of 4-5 who are of similar ability. We read a book which is slightly harder than their normal reading book. First we discuss perhaps what has already happened or, if it's a new book what we think the book is about, what we can tell from the blurb, whether we have read anything else by the same author etc. The children then begin reading to themselves at their own pace. I walk round the group and ask a child to read the passage they are on out loud to check on intonation, expression etc. All the children read at their own speed and we agree how far we will read before stopping, say the first page/chapter. When a child has reached that point they are asked to identify any unknown/unsure words and look them up in a dictionary. When the whole group has reached the agreed point, we will look at language used, descriptive vocabulary, how the author uses speech etc, depending on the focus of the session/ability of the group. We discuss the words we have identified, make predictions etc. Different teachers will have their own way of doing guided reading but there should be some similar characterisitics!

oh thanks for that . I can never quite get to the bottom of what goes on at ds school. They only ever talk about what happened at playtime

thanks primarymum, why would he do guided reading on a book 5 ORT levels below his reading book? Any idea. It then got sent home in his book bag too.

No idea! As I said, we usually use books a little harder than the level of reading books the children would usually take home as obvioulsy the reading and understanding is supported by the teacher, rather than read independently

Perhaps there is a very wide spread in that particular group ( it can be hard to manage the groups if the reading ability in the class is very wide ( mine goes from 5b to 1a!)or maybe the book was chosen to suit a particular objective/topic but I'm clutching at straws really, 5 levels below is an awful lot!

One of the guided reading groups I take always has a book which is below their reading ability. That is, below the level at which they are comfortable actually reading the words, but in fact, at about the right level for their comprehension. We not only read the books, but talk about the story, answer questions about it, the children are expected to be able to talk about aspects of the book other than purely literal who did this, what happened next type of questions. They have to give opinions and justify their answers by referring back to the text. All in 25 minutes a day!

I can see the sense of what sayithow does. Even as an adult you do reading at so many different levels: sometimes you skim read, sometimes you read something in depth, sometimes you read something you don't wholly understand, sometimes you read easy stuff very fast.

Reading something on a different level to his usual isn't going to do your ds any harm; in fact, if the teacher uses a new approach, he may well be learning new skills.

I think this strictly levelled approach can actually be a bit of a red herring at times: reading is such a multi-facetted process and I don't think we should lose sight of that.

When DS does guided reading I think it generally is at a slightly lower level than the books he has for individual reading, but they go more deeply into it. I am not concerned at all, although 5 reading levels does sound like quite a lot.

sylar - is it possible the teacher is trying to focus on your ds's comprehension by giving him an easier book for guided reading? A friend of dd's has been reading fluently since reception but his comprehension skills are in the lower half of the class.

Or, if guided reading is a new thing for the children, maybe they are starting them on an easier book to get them confident about the new skills they are practising?

I spoke to the teacher and asked about it today. He and two others are ahead of the rest of the class in reading terms and she said that they mix it up and sometimes push them on the guided read and on other occasions they use a book which she knows they will all cope with easily in order to focus purely on the comprehension. I can see why, they are only in reception and they do need to ensure they understand the words they are reading. We're back onto the normal band today. This school stuff is confusing!