Literacy In Reception

[Guest]

Hi,

Hope someone who is a bit more experienced than me can help!

I have been told I have to do 2 guided reads and a guided write each week. Was just wondering, is this the whole class (in small groups, but do the whole class have to do it every week?)

I don't want to end up trying to rush through sit-down group activities so I can 'tick off' that I have done them, thought the FS was more based on individual needs? Hope i am making sense!

It just seems a lot, as it is there hardly seems to be any time for C.I. activities!!

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

[HappyMaz]

Hi zoestar!

 

I'm in pre-school so I can't offer much help (although I think this was discussed on here fairly recently). Just wanted to welcome you to the Forum!

 

Maz

[Guest]

thankyou! just realised that was my first post! i joined over the summer, thought id posted before!

so hi everyone!!

[HappyMaz]

thankyou! just realised that was my first post! i joined over the summer, thought id posted before!

so hi everyone!!

Well I must admit when I saw it was your first post that I was surprised because I thought you'd posted before! Perhaps someone else has a similar user name to you!

[Guest]

zoestar we do guided reading once a week at the beginning of reception but by the last term we are getting in two sessions per week. I do guided reading as a small group time activity and while I am working with my group my TA is also working with her group. We then split our group into two for the guided reading and we have two fifteen minute sessions. So half of the group have a teacher directed activity for 14 mins while we do guided reading and then we swop over. It works well and it is good to do this with only about 7 or 8 children at a time.

 

We do shared writing once a week and again we split into Key person groups so I have my 15 and my TA has her 15. Again this is a small group activity and as we get to the end of the year this is like guided writing.

 

We still get a morning and afternoon session of CI time and both last about 1.5 hours each time. Hope this helps.

[catma]

The general guidance has been 2 guided reads/1 x writing but you also have to be guided by children's ability to engage in that type of activity so their development of skills is important. Small group shared reading might be better until children have been taught a bunch of phonemes they can blend and then apply. It's really all about application. The writing can/should come from activities they are engaged in and again are to support application. Small group activities where the adult scribes are part of this. Think of them as adult directed tasks!! They also need to be supported by heaps of independent opps too of course so this shouldn't be the only writing a child gets access to in a week. Your professional judgement about their readiness to tackle this type of focus is paramount and you shouldn't be forced to do it any other way.

Cx

[wellerkaren]

Hi sorry can not help jsut wanted to welcome you to the forum

[Marion]

We've dropped guided reading altogether in favour of individual reading and I do 2 guided writing sessions.

[Guest]

Just wanted to say hi and welcome.

[BagelFace]

As a result of this thread I have now sat down to look at my timetable to see where I would fit in a guided reading session, guided writing, maths and one other focussed session and I simply can't! How do you all fit things in? I quite like the idea of not bothering with groups reading and doing it one to one. My class in split into four groups of 7 or 8.

 

The other question that this then triggered is what reading are you doing, usually I begin by sending home books without words in so the children can talk about what they see etc.. are others doing the same?

 

What sort of things do you do in your guided writing? So far I have only worked with the two higher groups on letter formation.

 

Help, my head is now spinning and I need more wine!

[catma]

What sort of things do you do in your guided writing? So far I have only worked with the two higher groups on letter formation.

 

I think I would see that as handwriting more than "guided writing" - the point for guided writing groups is writing for a purpose, so communication of an idea etc is what you are about rather than letter shapes, although you might be guiding and encouraging correct formation as a part of that input depending on individual children's competencies.

 

In relation to reading this is a very good resource which you can order, which demonstrates guided reading at different levels of children's phonics develoement ie what it migt look like at phase 2. It also shows the rest of the reading curriculum, ie reading aloud, sharing books etc so is worth a look. Link:

teachernet reading cpd resource

 

As with all things the 2 x reading weekly etc is guidance - you can, as Marion has done, do differently and as long as the children make the expected progress in an other way then that is fine. They serve different purposes: 1-1 reading is very intensive on time but would support early readers well, group reading when children are more capable allows you to observe them reading independently whilst you read with others in the group and i have seen very good sessions like this because the books and expectations were matched to assessed levels of competency with blending and segmenting.It's a case of dipping into your practitioner toolkit and coming up with the right tool for the job. It's all down to professional judgement.

Cx

 

Cx

[BagelFace]

Thanks this helps my understanding and to know that I am not missing anything. Will have a look at the document you suggest too.

[Guest]

Hi

My head is spinning just thinking about all these things to fit in! I havent been doing guided reading with my Reception class - I have a brilliant lady (nan of an old pupil) who comes to hear readers and hears them all read and then me and my TA make sure they are all heard by us as well. Was pressured into doing guided reading with Reception by Lit co-ordinator last year but found it wasnt helping anyone - reading was a real chore and not a pleasure. Have now joined a CPD group working on CLLD issues as a local area and discussed it with LEA advisor who throught it was far more beneficial to spend time in the book areas inside and outside sharing books with children and using these opps to model and move on learning. We have been trying this this term and i feel i have spent far more time reading and sharing books with the children - we have reading books and easily decodable books in the book area as well as core stroy books and non fiction stuff. I was looking at my obs in reading last night and i def have more than i did last year. Its obviously not the only answer and I will prob have to do guided reading at some point as there are as always those children that choose not to read but I think I am more aware of them and can then do something about that. Hope that what i am doing is ok for the mo - think i will go with this until someone tells me otherwise!

[catma]

I think you have to consider the different reasons for reading in class in different ways:

 

Guided reading is a time efficient method for hearing children read as you work with a small group (again no fixed sze here!) and can see how they are decoding text/bringing meaning to texts independently as well as pushing them in areas they need to practice. it works best when children can do the decoding thing a bit and can get a sense of purpose/success from the activity I think

 

1-1 reading can do the same, but is more time intensive/adult intensive especially if you have 30 children to get through, 30 x 10 mins each minimum for good quality input = 5 hours of contact time or 1 day. So you might need other adults to spread the load. Not everyone can do that! Also is it a scheme book/banded book so you are focused on decoding/sight words or is it a story bookjust for pleasure

Shared small group reading - an alternative to "guided" if children are still at the stage of developing their awareness of how books work, some sight words etc

 

Reading aloud - for enjoyment and comprehension development in large or small groups or individually - develops a repertoire of known texts to recall and draw on etc etc

 

If you identify what you want to get from the activity then you can apply the right method for your children. I'm not saying it's simple but if you break it down it can become a bit clearer! Another thing to consider is where do you assess the children in relation to other strands of CLLD /EYFS and use that as a guide to your input too e.g. poor physical fine motor skills will get in the way of guided writing - maybe better to be mark making with sticks in the mud! Or actually maybe that would be a very good guided writing session!!!!!.

Cx

[Guest]

We've dropped guided reading altogether in favour of individual reading and I do 2 guided writing sessions

 

Can you tell us why you've done this please?

[Marion]

Because we find our children make better progress if heard individually than when we did guided reading.

[Susan]

Im trying to encourage the opposite!

[Marion]

It's a whole school policy not just reception

[Susan]

Thanks for that, Marion.

[Guest]

Our head asked us to trial this, but we obviously had to do 1 guided as well, and I really struggled with this. I found that either I was reading all the time or my TA was. Also it was later in the year so we were also doing an hour of cll activities followed by an hour of psrn activities so i personally felt that I could only really read during cll time, otherwise i would be taking some of the md activities of the children. Also i strongly object to my children being called out of intros and plenaries as i feel this is really important.

 

So needless to say we are guided reading twice weekly, lol

[Guest]

I abandoned guided reading last year as I had 16 children that were on about 9 different levels, and while it should obviously be a best fit, it was getting ridiculous, so I opted for individual reading. I have also found, in previous years, that we had to have one in the group reading (taking turns) with the others following the text in their books, as left to it while you concentrate on oe child, they are not necessarily bothered (or don't notice!) if what they have sounded out doesn't make sense, so in their session they weren't getting much more reading than they do individually anyway, if that makes any sense. I may give group reading another go this year but not sure yet - have been doing it individually with the group I have who are ready for books.