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Reading at Key Stage 2| Contexts for teaching reading at Key Stage 2
Quiet reading
Student teachers need to understand the value of quiet reading in helping children to become involved in the world of the text and read for sustained periods, an activity that some will be unable to indulge in at home. They can influence children as readers through intervening personally to monitor their reading, suggesting new genres and titles and setting new challenges. But this can be done only if they have a good knowledge of appropriate texts!
English for Pupils with Diverse Backgrounds - Key Principles and Emphases has a useful focus on the need to include ‘literature of the world’ on the class book shelves. Such texts are often overlooked by student teachers.
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There are important lessons about reading that can only be learnt from books themselves.
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The signs of genuine reading development are hard to detect as they appear, and bear little relation to what is measured by reading tests. For me, the move from 'more of the same' to 'I might truly try something different' is a clear step. So is a growing tolerance of ambiguity, the notion that things are not quite as theyseem, even in a fairly straightforward tale (Meek, 1988: 30)
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- Ask student teachers to read silently for a given period in session while you model this yourself (Campbell, 1989). They should then explore some of the strengths and limitations of this activity and use their findings to help them observe what goes on in their classrooms. If time, ask students, in small groups, to discuss what they have read as a precursor to introducing Literature Circles.
- Discuss the need for books which reflect and relate to different cultures. (See also English for Pupils with Diverse Backgrounds - Key Resources / Approaches / Activites)
- Explore the need to provide a wide range of quality fiction as well as non-fiction, magazines and comics etc. so that even reluctant readers can find something of interest (see The Role of Popular Culture in Primary English).
- Discuss how to record what is read e.g. reading logs, journals, reviews etc. Student teachers need to recognise the value of these practices and their role in responding to such records.
- List productive organisational and management strategies
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