When you think of guided reading, the image that probably springs to mind is of a teacher or teaching assistant listening to a single child read.

While this method allows teachers to provide individualised support, it has its drawbacks, including being tricky to facilitate in the middle of a pandemic.

But there are other options out there. Year 2 year group leader Catherine Sargent has trialled a new approach to guided reading that involves working with the whole class.

Tes asked her to explain how the method works and what impact it can have.

Tes: Guided reading can come in many guises. Can you explain some of the options?

Catherine Sargent: Across key stages 1 and 2, my experience of guided reading has always been similar. Commonly, the class is split into ability groups and the texts are differentiated and tailored to the reading ability of each group. Usually, this involves planning and resourcing for four different texts each week and creating a timetable of rotating activities for each group.

This is the strategy we used for two years at my current school and one that was very effective for rapidly improving progress from Years 1 to 6.

However, one disadvantage of this approach is that some children become aware that they are reading a “lower ability” book, which can make it more difficult for them to develop a love of reading.

The second drawback is that it takes an enormous amount of time to plan these lessons effectively, which can have a negative impact on teacher workload and wellbeing.

Another common guided reading approach is one-to-one reading intervention sessions with target children and a member of support staff. This can be effective as it enables the adult to focus on specific areas of reading to suit the needs of the child.

However, this method relies on a second adult being available to listen to children read and is a more time-consuming approach than listening to groups, so it is very difficult to listen to all children read regularly.

You decided to use a different approach: whole-class guided reading. Could you explain what this looks like?

Whole-class guided reading involves all the children in a class accessing the same text, regardless of reading ability. It is important that the text is challenging and full of interesting, new vocabulary.

Each week, we deliver four 30-minute whole-class guided reading lessons in KS1 and KS2. At the start of each lesson, an adult reads the text or part of a text out loud to the children. They model enthusiastic reading, including the use of tone and expression. It is imperative that children hear excellent examples of reading out loud every day in order for them to become outstanding readers. There is then a planned activity based around one of the Vipers (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarise/sequence).

Every Monday is a vocabulary lesson, where children are exposed to new words. Two out of the four lessons each week are oracy based.

We use our own teacher assessment frameworks (TAFs) to assess our children. All children are assessed on their age-related TAFs for comprehension. The few children who are working below their year group for reading have their fluency regularly assessed during interventions, using a text that matches their reading age.

When did you switch to this method and did it take a lot of preparation?

We made the switch to whole-class guided reading in September 2019, after receiving training on oracy in the classroom. During this training, we learned that disadvantaged children are less likely to have access to a wide variety of texts to support their language and vocabulary skills, increasing the word gap between them and their peers.

As we have a high percentage of disadvantaged children, we felt that a move towards whole-class guided reading would ensure that all children are exposed to high-quality, age-appropriate texts, regardless of their reading age.

Initially, only two teachers implemented the approach: the Year 6 year group leader and me.

We completed lesson studies with our year groups and refined the new approach before delivering a staff meeting to share our method with the whole school. We compiled a list of vocabulary-rich, challenging texts for each year group and asked teachers to choose their guided reading texts from this list.

We also completed reading learning walks and lesson studies so that staff could share good practice.

Does the approach work the same way in KS1 and KS2?

There are many similarities between KS1 and KS2. Our children all sit in mixed-attainment pairs, they all access one challenging class text each week and all are taught oracy.

However, in KS1, there is the obvious difference that our children are still learning to read. Since the first school closures we, like everyone else, are now teaching phonics in Year 2. We use our phonics lessons to teach sounds and spellings, and we also use the Read Write Inc books to listen to the children read a text that is linked to the sounds that they have learned that day or week. This means that we can assess children’s fluency based on a phonics book and they can still be exposed to a high-quality, age-relevant text in whole-class guided reading sessions.

Afternoon interventions in KS1 are also heavily focused on phonics and reading fluency in small groups.

What would you say are the key points for getting this approach right?

The factor that has made this a success at our school has been securing staff buy-in. For this to happen, it is important to take your time with the implementation; do not rush into rolling this out across the whole school before trying it with a couple of year groups first.

Not every school is the same, so you will need to tailor any scheme to fit your context and your children. We spent half a term trialling the approach and made lots of little changes during that time.

Once you roll the approach out, empower your staff by spotting and sharing talent. We identified individuals who had really embraced teaching oracy and embedded those skills during guided reading sessions. We then asked these individuals to lead on a lesson study across their phase to disseminate good practice.

Finally, getting the texts right is key. Choose texts that are challenging but still accessible for your children. They should be vocabulary-rich, but also inspiring, to instil a love of reading.

What has the impact of the new approach been in your school?

Our staff are much more enthusiastic about teaching reading. They are also spending less time planning and more time thinking carefully about which text they want to read next. One of our teachers reported that, while it used to take them four hours to plan guided reading for a week, it now takes just one hour with the new whole-class approach.

Reading progress, particularly for our pupil- premium children and those with special educational needs and disability (SEND), has accelerated and all are more confident speakers. The reading gap between pupil- premium and non-pupil-premium children began to close between the autumn and spring terms and, had we not had to close the school because of Covid-19, teacher projections showed that this gap would have narrowed by 6 per cent between autumn 2019 and summer 2020.

What do you hope to achieve with this approach in the future?

Our aim is to nurture a true love of reading with all our children. We want to ensure that we do not put a ceiling on their learning and that all of them are challenged.

Regardless of reading ability, SEND or if a child is pupil premium, we want to ensure that they have the same opportunities. We want to create a high-challenge, low-threat environment in every classroom and empower our children to be confident readers, speakers and all-round learners.

Catherine Sargent is Year 2 year group leader at a school in Wolverhampton, West Midlands

This article originally appeared in the 15 January 2021 issue under the headline “How I...lead whole-class guided reading”