Guided Reading

[Guest]

Hi,

I've been reading the posts about guided reading and am wondering how people are recording the sessions.

Also do you have a group target taken from the literacy strategy and then a further learning intention for each session that changes more frequently?

Thanks

Jo

[Guest]

Hi Jo , I am also very interested in Guided reading. I group my children as near as possible by ability (needs must) and then we target particular skills in their reading session - this may follow from text level work with the big book or it may be a particular skill that the children in that group need to practice. ( e.g at the beginning of the year it may be telling a story from the pictures, finding key words, pointing to one word at a time - for some groups I play phonic and key word games too) I keep a list in a large book of what the group has read - any difficulties/ great leaps ( which in turn provides the way forward and future targets for the group) and I also note next to each child's name how well they coped (confidence, interest, comments they make whilst sharing the book) I find some of the notes (especially the chidlren's verbal commments) useful for backing up assessment in other areas of the FSP e.g. when we've shared non fiction linked to themes in the classroom. I find that throughout the year my groups flutuate tremendously as the children start to 'fly' with their reading ! What do you find?

June

[Guest]

Hi June

I started off by grouping the children in 4 groups of six at the beginning of Spring term (that's when we started guided reading), based on ability. The groups read twice a week together, once with a nursery nurse and once with me. We are using the same recording sheet as the rest of the school. The literacy co-ordinator recently 'rejigged the format and it became unsuitable (the first one we were using wasn't that suitable either) for us to use. She has said that we can use what ever form works for us so we are in the process of making a new one.

I felt that the groups of 6 children last term were too big not big enough (e.g. we only have 6 of each book but there were seven children who could have read together, so one had to go in the group below!). I have since made the groups smaller, 3 to 4 chidlren in each group and I feel the children are now getting alot more from the sessions. I have grouped the children according to their ability in phonics, but sometimes change the groups if their is a specific skill that some children need to practice.

At the moment I keep all the recording sheets in a file, that needs organising! The current recording sheet has a group learning target linked to the literacy strategy (guided reading is the only time we actually use or refer to the literacy strategy!) and then a learning intention linked to the book.

Hope this all makes sense!

Jo