Supporting Children's Reading

A Complete Short Course for Teaching Assistants, Volunteer Helpers and Parents

Margaret Hughes, Peter Guppy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415498364
• eBook ISBN: 9781135176488
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Being able to read is one of the most important skills in life and something we all want our children to achieve – for learning and for pleasure. Supporting Children's Reading gives you the understanding you need of the reading process to ensure that children are effectively supported in their reading journeys.

This practical programme draws on the authors' wealth of experience in delivering this kind of training and is an invaluable point of reference for anyone working with children to improve their reading. With links to downloadable online resources, it provides everything you need to deliver a bespoke training course tailored to meet your particular audience, including:

• succinct and clear explanations of how reading works
• time-saving resources such as photocopiable handouts and professionally designed visual display screens
• advice on helping children to improve both their decoding and comprehension skills
• guidance on strategies for helping a child deal with a problem word.

Supporting Children's Reading is an accessible, ready-to-use resource to support teachers working with teaching assistants, volunteer 'Reading Buddies' and parents, to provide training on how to share books and listen to readers effectively. It will be especially useful for adults working with children who, for whatever reason, need extra support in developing reading skills.

WORKSHOP 1
Basics of reading

The balance of clues – Seen and Unseen

Screen 1/1	Workshop 1
OUTLINE OF COURSE
Workshop 1 Basics of reading: the balance of clues – Seen and Unseen
Workshop 2 More about clues
Workshop 3 Teaching tips 1–5: phonics backs up meaning
Workshop 4 Teaching tips 6–10: meaning backs up phonics
Workshop 5 Three levels of reading
Workshop 6 Frustration and Independent levels in action
Workshop 7 Instructional level in action
Workshop 8 It’s a team game: teaching assistant and teacher

PRESENTER’S NOTES FOR WORKSHOP 1

Screen 1/1: Outline of course

Have Screen 1/1 on display as the group arrives and settles in.

There may be various ‘housekeeping’ points to make about fire exits, toilets etc.

Explain the rationale for providing this course – making the most of their time and energies in ensuring that children are supported effectively and helped to make good progress with their reading.

Continue with the following points:

As presenter, having had a close look through the entire course, you can promise that it is based on close scrutiny of what children do when they meet a problem word, and how they can be helped.

It does this very realistically, examining numerous ‘snapshots’ of children reading.

Although each workshop is very full, this should not prevent the group from having an input, asking questions, making observations and discussing points along the way.

Supplement these opening remarks by distributing to each participant a copy of the Introduction, page 1, backed with a copy of Screen 1/1. (It may be useful to put out the copies beforehand, one on each...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• Presenter’s Guide
• WORKSHOP 1 Basics of reading
• WORKSHOP 2 More about clues
• WORKSHOP 3 Teaching Tips 1–5
• WORKSHOP 4 Teaching tips 6–10
• WORKSHOP 5 Three levels of reading
• WORKSHOP 6 Frustration and Independent levels in action
• WORKSHOP 7 Instructional level in action
• WORKSHOP 8 It’s a team game
• Appendix READING OBSERVATION SHEET
• References