Khalsa Sixth News
Posted - Oct 2023
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Guided Reading
Guided Reading in Primary is taught based on a metacognitive approach pioneered by Michelle Kelley and Nicki Clausen Grace (2013). This approach focuses on explicitly teaching pupils the metacognitive skills required to comprehend a text, and uses ‘think alouds’ to model to pupils the mental strategies used to comprehend and decode a text. These metacognitive skills are:
- Visualise
- Retrieve
- Make connections
- Summarise
- Evaluate
- Ask questions
These skills are then used together to draw inference from a text.
The process of teaching Guided Reading lessons draws on several of Rosenshine’s Principles including daily review, scaffolds and providing models.
Guided Reading Long Term Plans
Year 1 and 2:
Pupils have 1 Guided Reading lesson per week. This lesson alternates in focus every week; week 1 focuses on a metacognitive skill, week 2 recaps this skill then focuses on a ‘book talk’ skill. The book talk skills are the broader skills required to articulate thoughts around a text. These include skills such as:
- voicing opinions and discussing texts
- learning and performing poems
- re-telling a story within a group
- performing a story pupils know well
Key Stage 2:
Pupils have 5 Guided Reading lessons per week.
The format of these start highly scaffolded; this is reduced throughout the week:
Monday- highly scaffolded direct instruction of a metacognitive skill; this is modelled by the teacher through a think aloud and discussed as a class.
Tuesday-another think aloud is modelled and the pupils identify the strategies being used; questions around this metacognitive skill are discussed in pairs.
Wednesday-the teacher reads some of the class text to the pupils. Pupils then answer questions based on the week’s metacognitive skill, followed by reciprocal reading.
Thursday-the teacher reads some of the class text to the pupils. Pupils then answer questions based on the week’s metacognitive skill, followed by reciprocal reading.
Friday-this is ‘book talk’ day. This is a session where pupils have structured discussions around books they are reading.
What is form reading time?
Our secondary students at Atam have one form time a week, dedicated to reading, and they engage with a class reader, to support progress in reading and comprehension skills. Form tutors and students read the chosen text together, and across the year, this will range from reading a whole novel, to reading a collection of short stories and poetry, allowing students to explore different time periods, genres and narratives. Texts will also range between fiction and non-fiction, so that students have a clear understanding of the differences between the two, building bridges not only from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3, but also eventually extending it to Key Stage 4.
This time will be for reading and discussion around the text, giving students a platform to discuss key themes and genres, as well as allowing them to generate new ideas that they can then use in their own creative writing. It is also something that will tie in with our ‘Word of the Week’, with key- words from the texts being identified and analysed together. We aim to create an environment where reading is enjoyed by all students and is something they continue to do at home.
What are the benefits of reading a whole-class text?
- Encountering new words and enriching vocabulary – students experience words that would almost never come up in conversation
- Students can enjoy and understand texts beyond their own reading ability
- Enhances imagination and observation skills
- Improves critical and creative thinking skills
- Expands a student’s general knowledge and understanding of the world
- Empathy is developed as they make connections with the experiences of the characters in the text and with each other
- Fluent, expressive reading is modelled
- Enables them to make meaning from more complex texts
- Conditions the brain to associate reading with pleasure
- Plants a desire to read
