Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category

My recent post, “Round Robin Reading/Guided Reading – Is there a difference?” prompted great interest and many queries. Some of the more frequently asked questions about Guided Reading are outlined below.

Q: What can the students who finish early do whilst waiting for other students to finish?
A: There are no hard and fast rules and we must respond according to our knowledge of individuals …

Refining the practice of guided reading is a priority goal in many of the schools I am working in. Understandings of guided reading vary enormously, as does the instruction around guided reading from classroom to classroom.

What it is . . .

an opportunity for every student to independently problem solve the text or section of the text.

What it isn’t . . .

a group of students …

I am relishing the opportunity to do some independent coaching at an outer Brisbane primary school. As part of a whole school approach to improve reading outcomes, I am implementing a strategy with which I have experienced great success over many years of working with harder to teach students.

It has been almost ten years since I first introduced The Reading Wall as part of …

The Bookmark Book is the newest publication by Literacy Solutions to support busy teachers. The book contains 82 reproducible bookmarks which prompt readers to reflect about what has been read, and/or apply word solving strategies. These can be used to support the reading of independently read texts, or to use during guided, collaborative or cooperative reading strategies.

The Bookmark Book is part of the package for …

Assisting Parents and Caregivers to Support Home Reading

Teachers know that parents make a world of difference to children’s literacy development and that support at home is crucial to developing attitudes to reading as well as practising and applying reading skills and knowledge.

As we move into the new year, schools will schedule parent information sessions to provide important insights about routines and procedures, expectations for learning …

Can six Little Secrets make a difference?

What makes for powerful reading instruction? Expert teachers of reading know why and how to plan for reading instruction that gets powerful outcomes for students.

They know what the Six Secrets are and very importantly, how to make them work in a classroom. So what are they? They are:

Explicit, data driven instruction
Differentiated, strategic problem solving with the right amount of …

Comprehension is built around a foundation of prior knowledge and will therefore differ for individuals. It is possible and likely for students within a single cohort to have different understandings of elements within the same text.

Factors contributing to a strong foundation of prior knowledge:

rich language environments, i.e. those in which there is a high volume of general and focused talk around a variety of topics; …

How do we improve reading outcomes for students? What do highly proficient teachers of reading do? Here’s my Top Ten list . . .

Gather regular, ongoing records using both formal and informal measures on continuous text; analyse strategic behaviour on errors and self-corrections, make observations about elements of prosody and fluency and assess comprehension; determine skills and knowledge controlled and absent; identify patterns of behaviour
Analyse …

I recently wrote on the importance of intrinsically motivated readers. There is much to be gained from providing texts around students’ interests. How can we do this? The obvious answer is to ask and they’ll tell us. This works for most students, but you may have observed that some students don’t appear to know what they’re interests are. We only need to watch as …

Much has been written about the "Book Box" or selection of easy or familiar texts used to support independent learning. In a recent conversation, the notion of the book box was discussed and the specific contents of the box debated. There appeared to be some confusion around suitable material and also how it should be used to support students during independent learning.

Book boxes provide students …