Managing your reading classroom
If you create a productive, dynamic, creative literacy environment, you will find ways to involve all the children in reading activities all the time. This can be very difficult if there is a large number of children in one space. You can use different grouping and reading strategies to help manage large groups of children:
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Shared reading: You read a story to a larger group of children. You read the story for enjoyment and talk about what the children see, hear, think and feel. You follow up the reading with discussion and activities, including children reading the same story in pairs or individually.
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Group guided reading: Children are in small groups of between six and ten. The children read the same story together with the help of an adult. The adult helps the children in different ways to guess and read difficult words using the most appropriate method (letters and sounds, look-and-say, and language experience). They also discuss the story together.
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Paired reading: Children sit in pairs to read together, or take turns to read a simple storybook that they can read themselves.
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Independent reading: Children read short, simple books on their own, that are easy enough for them to read without help.
Optional reading: The downloadable resource ‘Strategies for managing reading with your class’ gives you more detailed information about shared reading, group/guided reading, paired reading and independent reading. A learning resource about storytelling from the TESS-India project may also be helpful.
Activity 5.6: Strategies for using stories to support reading
(We recommend you spend 30 minutes on this activity)
- Using the information above, re-read the case study about Ms Khumalo in Activity 5.4. Identify in the case study when Ms Khumalo uses the different strategies described above.
- In your study notebook, describe how you will plan to use the different reading strategies in one of your lessons.
- If possible, discuss your ideas with a colleague.
OpenLearn - Using stories and storybooks

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