KS1 Guided Reading

 

In KS1, all children take part in regular guided reading lessons that focus on promoting pupils phonics knowledge and decoding at word level, reading for enjoyment, developing reading stamina, and exploring texts to improve comprehension skills. Children are engaged in reading a variety of carefully selected books within a group setting or a whole class setting. Each group is assigned a particular book, matched to their reading ability.

 

Year 1

 

In Year 1 each group works with the class teacher at least once a week so the teacher can hear each child read and chart progress which informs teachers’ future planning. Children read aloud to the class teacher and their peers and discuss what they have read through targeted questioning. The small, differentiated groups provide a relaxed, focused setting for children to share their thoughts and opinions about what they have been reading. Children are supported in understanding and responding to texts, and are taught appropriate technical vocabulary to articulate their responses.

 

Year 2

 

In Year 2, ‘Whole Class Guided Reading’ is taught. Teachers select high quality texts which cater for all reading abilities and these are read aloud each day. Children read the same text several times throughout the week, and are able to recognise familiar vocabulary the more times they read and hear the story read to them in class. The class teacher hears every child read once and this is recorded in each child’s reading record at the end of the session. At Hampton we use ‘The Literacy Shed’ and the ‘Reading VIPERS’ as a key resource for teaching whole class guided reading in Year 2. Reading Vipers are linked to the KS1 content domains and cover the key comprehension skills assessed at the end of KS1. VIPERS is an acronym and stands for:

 

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explaining

Retrieval

Sequencing

 

In class children are explicitly taught the ‘lens’ each VIPERS questions are asked through and they learn the skills needed to answer questions and develop their reading comprehension through these 6 key areas. The approach allows our pupils to encounter a wide range of high quality texts, engage with reading in an enjoyable, exciting way and improve their reading skills and articulate responses all at once.