Guided Reading at Whitehouse

In Key Stage One and Key Stage Two (years one to six) the children follow a series of structured guided reading lessons.  They are taught 4 lessons per week and each lessons lasts for 30 minutes. 

Each term is broken into guided reading units, where a unit focusses on one text.  The length of the text will determine the length of time spent on a particular unit, ranging between 1 week and 5 weeks.

In order to support the children in developing a love of reading, high quality and engaging texts are chosen by class teachers.  These are usually linked to our enquiry curriculum, supporting immersion in both the text and the topic.

In each lesson the children are taught one specific reading skill.  We use the twinkl reading skills dogs which allow teachers to explore the KS1 and KS2 reading content domains and break them down into accessible questions for children to unpick and explore.

KS1 Skills

For younger children, there are five core skills involved in truly understanding a text:

1. Thinking about why an author has used specific words.
2. Being able to find facts in a text they’ve just read.
3. Putting the things that they have read into the correct order.
4. Using clues in the text to understand how someone is feeling or why something happened, even when this isn’t specifically explained.
5. Making simple predictions about what might happen next.

The KS1 reading skills dogs are:

Vocabulary Victor, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1A and the Whitehouse curriculum target: I can draw on my knowledge of vocabulary to understand texts. These questions help children to think about the words an author has used, what those words might mean (deduced by context) and alternative word choices which would convey the same meaning.

Rex Retriever, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1B and the Whitehouse curriculum target:  I can identify and explain key aspects of fiction and non-fiction texts, such as characters, events, titles and information. These questions help children to answer questions by finding evidence in the text - finding and copying accurately from the words given by the author.

Sequencing Suki, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1C and the Whitehouse curriculum target: I can identify and explain the sequence of events in texts. These questions help children to recall the order in which events happened in the text. This could pertain to what happened first or last, matching events to the date or time they happened or numbering a series of events chronologically.

Inference Iggy, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1D and the Whitehouse curriculum target:  I work out what a character is thinking or feeling, based on their actions.    This helps children to hunt for clues within the text to help them to infer why or how something is true. These questions might link to how characters feel, their actions or the events of the story. These questions can be tricky for some children so Iggy breaks them down into small, progressive steps which build on inference skills.

Predicting Pip, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1E and the Whitehouse curriculum target: I can predict what might happen on the basis of what I have read so far. Pip uses her crystal ball to help children to see into the future - predicting the events of the future based on what has already happened.

KS2 Skills

For children aged 7 to 11, there are four extra skills they need to master:

1. Summing up what they’ve just read.

2. Explaining how what is happening in the text shapes the overall meaning of the story.

3. Comparing and contrasting characters and texts that they’ve read.

4. Spotting ambitious vocabulary in a text.

The KS2 reading skills dogs are:

Vocabulary Victor, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1A and the Whitehouse curriculum vocabulary targets, such as:  I can identify synonyms and suggest alternative vocabulary choices. These questions help children to think about the meaning of words they don’t know.   Victor helps you to do this by looking at the words or phrases you’re unsure of in context. This means using the story so far, the sentences around them and what you already know about the plot to figure out what the word or phrase must mean. Victor also asks questions about alternative word choices which would convey the same meaning.

Rex Retriever, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1B and the Whitehouse curriculum target:  I can retrieve information from fiction, non-fiction or poetry texts.  These questions help children to  find key pieces of information in a text.  Rex helps the children to do this by skimming and scanning the text for specific key words relating to the answer.  With Rex questions, the answer can always be found in the text.

Summarising Sheba, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1C and the Whitehouse curriculum targets based on summarising or ordering, for example, I can summarise the main events from a paragraph.  These questions help children to sum up what they have read.  Sheba helps the children to do this by asking them to order events from the text as a whole, decide what the main themes are for paragraphs or whole texts, or pick out the key points from the whole text in order to briefly explain the content.

Inference Iggy, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1D and the Whitehouse curriculum targets based on inference such as:  I can infer a characters thoughts and feelings.  These questions help the children to pick up ideas from the text that are not always written in the text itself.  For example, Iggy encourages the children to search for what is meant by the words in the text rather than searching for specific words.

Predicting Pip, who represents the national curriculum content domain 1E and the Whitehouse curriculum target: I can predict what might happen on the basis of what I have read so far.  These questions help the children to make predictions about what will happen after a given point.  Pip helps the children to look at clues in the text to support their predictions about what is likely to happen I the future.

Commentator Cassie, who represents the national curriculum content domains 1F and 1H and the Whitehouse curriculum targets involving comparison, for example:  I can make comparisons between characters, settings, schemes and other aspects of what I have read, within and across books. These questions help the children to compare, contrast or comment on the text.  This means that the children are expected to compare different parts of the text and to give their opinion about the text.  Cassie helps the children to compare characters or events in a text. This means that they need to think carefully about what you have read and use evidence from the text to support your answers. 

Arlo the Author, who represents the national curriculum content domains 1G and the Whitehouse curriculum targets based on an author's language choice, for example, I can consider the impact of chosen language on the reader.  These questions help the children to spot examples of ambitious vocabulary and figurative language (such as similes, metaphors and personification) and explain how the words and phrases that have been used add to the meaning of the text.  Arlo encourages the children to think like authors in order to gain a greater understanding of a text.