Read About Best Practices in Shared reading

Introduction/Overview

This session explores shared reading within the framework of whole-group reading in grades K-2. You will have an opportunity to study a description and purpose for shared reading, examine the components, plan for text selection, and try out model lessons.

Shared reading (Holdaway, 1979) is a collaborative reading experience in which the teacher and the students join in reading together. It is a widely used technique that allows students to engage in the reading process, regardless of ability. Shared reading builds experience with written text, makes challenging text accessible, and strengthens problem-solving abilities.

Teacher and Student Roles

Both the teacher and student have a role in shared reading. The teacher has the job of identifying what to teach, selecting the text, providing the introduction, and guiding the questioning and response throughout the reading. The teacher is also responsible for reading the text and modeling through a think aloud with the students. The students should be following along and joining in with the teacher, participating in discussions, working to apply strategies learned during shared reading to their independent reading.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

During the shared-reading process, the teacher is gradually releasing responsibility so that the students see themselves as co-readers. Although we want to differentiate their instruction through a small group focus, there are also many times during the day when it is developmentally appropriate and advantageous for our students to participate in whole-group instruction.

Looking at the chart above, you will notice that it is on a slant. When we think about our students as learners, we must think about the progression that all effective, active learning follows. You see something done, you have a chance to try it on your own with support, and then you are ready to try it by yourself.

Shared reading falls in the framework after read-alouds and think-alouds.

During the read-aloud, the teacher is the responsible party for reading and thinking her way through the text. As we move into shared reading, the balance of responsibility begins to shift. Students have had the opportunity to see how it is done and this is their first chance to try it out on their own. The teacher is artfully crafting the lesson to provide the necessary structure to make this a successful experience.

As students leave the comfort zone of shared reading, they are challenged in small-group settings. Students are working in their instructional zone and are continuing to receive strategy support from their teacher on an as-needed basis. Small-group instruction provides students with a greater amount of responsibility for reading and applying what they have learned.

The greatest amount of responsibility comes when students are reading independently. All of the quality instruction you have provided during the read-aloud, shared reading, and small-group instruction is tested in the realm of independent reading.

Shared reading provides the opportunity for the teacher to involve the students in the text and focus on a particular aspect of it. After the teacher has been modeling think-alouds with the students during the read-aloud time, the same process will continue during the shared-reading portion of instruction. The think-aloud will help the students focus on the text. The strategies taught during shared reading are the same strategies that you teach during read-alouds and think-alouds.

As a result of shared reading, students will improve their ability to choose appropriate, interesting books for independent reading as well as their abilities in the areas of spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, and word choice.

Organizing for Shared Reading

Physical Space

In your classroom layout, you will want to be sure to allot a space for whole-group instruction. A carpeted area of the floor is usually the whole-group setting in primary classrooms. The teacher will need a comfortable chair and a place to store instructional materials as well as display the books to be read.

 Classroom Layout (119 KB)

Materials

You will also want to have a variety of instructional materials on hand. You will need a basket for pointers, highlighter tape, self-stick notes in a variety of sizes, wicki sticks, framing cards/paddles, and anything else you find you need for your lessons. You will also want to have a chart or big book stand so your hands can be free to point out things in the text. Depending on your stand, you might want to keep a few clothespins handy to hold the pages in some books.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

As the content of the text draws the students in, they begin to take a more active role in the reading process. When we think about our students as developing readers, we must recognize that each student is developing on their own individual timeline. Although we want to differentiate their instruction through a small group focus, there are also many times during the day when it is developmentally appropriate and advantageous for our students to participate in whole group instruction.

When we think about our students as learners, we must think about the progression that all effective, active learning follows. You see something done, you have a chance to try it on your own with support, and then you are ready to try it by yourself. During your teacher preparation training, you followed this same model. You didn’t take over the whole class on the first day. You watched your cooperating teacher, you tried a few things out while she was in the room and she provided timely, on-the-spot feedback. Finally, you were responsible for all of the instruction with the whole class. These are the same principles we apply to our students in learning.

Instructional-Planning

Shared reading aids the teacher in reading instruction and in writing instruction because students are able to see firsthand what quality writing looks and sounds like.

The ultimate goal of any reading instruction is for students to become independent readers and thinkers. All teachers want their students to have the ability to read, analyze, and discuss the ideas presented in books. Shared reading is a means to that end. The ultimate goal is for students to take more responsibility for their reading. It is the teacher’s job to show them how to take more responsibility. The teacher does this through modeled practice and think-alouds with the class.

Shared reading is a powerful medium because it gives teachers the opportunity to:

• Demonstrate what fluent reading looks like and sounds like
• Build connections between reading and students’ lives
• Provide practice for strategies to make text understandable
• Model fluent reading for transfer to students’ independent reading
• Increase students’ knowledge of the language, themselves, and the world

When thinking about what to teach during a shared reading lesson, you should carefully consider your students and their strengths and weaknesses. Thinking about your students and your most recent assessment information will insure that you are supporting reading development over time.

Lesson Sequence

In their book Reading and Learning to Read, Vacca, Vacca, and Gove explain the shared reading process very simply. Shared reading creates opportunities for students to learn what a book is, what an expert reader does with a book as it is read, and what makes a story a story. The process has three steps:

1. Introduce a new story
2. Reread familiar stories
3. Encourage independent reading

The introduction of the story is similar to any book introduction. You will want to examine the cover and title to predict the gist of the story. Students will have the opportunity to enjoy the story the first time through. When rereading the story, invite students to participate in some way. You might want to focus on repetitive elements or chants and have them join you in the reading. Participation is voluntary and the emphasis should remain on meaning and enjoyment.

Once several stories have been introduced, ask students which are their favorites and pick those for rereading. At this stage, you should hope to see increased participation because this is now very familiar text. This is the perfect time to work with book knowledge. You can demonstrate page turning, directionality (top to bottom and left to right), and book conventions such as the front and back cover, title and title page, pictures, and captions. This is also the perfect time to work with the written conventions of language. You should teach pages, spaces between words, uses of capital letters, punctuation marks, quotation marks, and many other conventions. As the students progress with the process, you can work on comprehension strategies in more depth.

As you work through a selected text for shared reading, you might find some prompts helpful. Use the chart below for a reference of strategies to teach and the questions to drive the strategies.

Finally, you will want to encourage independent reading. Ideally, you will develop a classroom library of books that are familiar readings. Encourage students to reread books on their own. Chances are, your students will be highly motivated to do this.

Text Selection

Shared reading is an excellent way of immersing readers in rich, expressive language without the concern of grade level or reading performance. For the youngest students, shared reading provides a wonderful opportunity for exposure to the language of storybooks and a framework for literature and language. Reluctant and struggling readers find shared reading a non-threatening environment where they can actually practice and apply reading strategies without the concern of being responsible for reading the text.

Text options for shared reading:

• Big Books
• Poetry charts
• Overhead transparencies
• Passage from a book (of which all the students have a copy)
• Song lyrics
• Maps
• Recipes
• Graphs

When you select a specific text for shared reading, you should consider the audience. What is the teaching point(s) you are intending to “pull out” of the selection? Look for evidence of that skill or strategy in the book you select.

Using Literacy Tools to Activate Knowledge of Phonetic Elements

Poetry can be used to model and demonstrate the following reading strategies:

• Directionality
• One-to-one matching
• Locating known words and letters
• Locating unknown words and letters based on letter/sound relationships
• Rereading to monitor with meaning, structure, and visual cues
• Predicting and confirming
• Cross-checking one cue source against another
• Searching for additional information using meaning, structure, and visual cues
• Self-correction

Using a Poem with Cloze Procedure

Cloze procedure is an excellent technique for the teacher to demonstrate and assist students in applying prediction and cross-checking strategies. To implement cloze procedure, the teacher prepares the poetry chart by using a self-stick note or a self-adhesive strip to conceal words at various points on the poetry chart. The teacher and the students read the poem up to the hidden word; then the students are asked to make meaningful predictions. As the students make their predictions, the teacher uses a wipe-off board to record their responses. Before the response is written, the teacher asks what letters students expect to see at the beginning of their word. Next, the first letter(s) of the concealed word on the poem are uncovered. The teacher assists students in confirming or rejecting their predictions based on the revealed letter(s). If needed, students are asked to make new predictions using the first letters of the hidden word. This technique assists the teacher in helping students apply the following reading strategies: predicting, confirming, crosschecking, and searching.

The following example illustrates the use of cloze procedure:

Teacher and students: (reading together) Fine Family

Here is the family in my household.

Some are young,

And some are____.

Beth:Grown-up!

Harrison:Old!

Teacher: (validating) Those are good guesses. They both make sense. What letters would you expect to find at the beginning of the word grown-up?

All:gr

Teacher:What letter would you expect to find at the beginning of the word old?

All:o

(The teacher writes the students’ predictions on a wipe-off board.)

Teacher:Let’s check on ourselves by looking at the first letter of the word.

The teacher reveals the first letter of the concealed word. She then points to the word grown-up on the wipe-off board.

Teacher: (pointing back to chart) Could this word be grown-up?

All:No!

Teacher:Why?

All:Because it doesn’t have a gr at the beginning. The teacher erases the word grown-up and points to the word old.

Teacher:Could this word be old?

All:Yes!

Teacher:Why?

All:Because it starts with the letter o.

Teacher:What other letters would you expect to find in the word old?

All:l and d.

Teacher: (uncovering the hidden word) Does this word look like old?

All:Yes!

Teacher: (activating) Does old make sense in the poem?

All:Yes!

Teacher:Good thinking! You found two ways to help yourself. Always ask yourself when you come to a tricky part, “Does it look right and does it make sense?”

Using a Poem to Develop Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is related to efficient reading. It focuses on helping students understand and distinguish sounds in oral language. In order to facilitate students gaining control in this area, the following activities provide explicit instruction at different levels of phonological awareness.

Levels of Phonological Awareness

The Little Turtle

There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn’t catch me.

Vachel Lindsay

Word Awareness

• Read a familiar poem, such as “The Little Turtle”. Ask students to listen to one line of the poem: “There was a little turtle.” Ask, How many words do you hear in this sentence?

Word Rhyming

• Name one word in the poem, such as flea. Ask students to give you a word that rhymes with it (me).
• Ask students to listen to the poem and identify the rhyming words. For example, say: Tell me two words in the poem that rhyme.

Sound Matching

• Pronounce two words from the poem and ask students whether they begin the same.

For example, say: Do box and but begin the same way?

• Ask students to name two words in the poem that begin the same.

Sound Isolation

• Using selected words from the poem, ask students to name the first sound of the word.
• For example, say: Tell me the first sound in the word mosquito. Tell me the last sound in the word swam.

Phoneme Blending

• Slowly articulate a word from the poem. Ask students to blend the word together.

For example:

Teacher: /m/ /e/

Students:me

Sound Addition or Substitution

• Choose a word from the poem to show that a new word can be created by the addition or substitution of a letter. Ask students to add the new sound to make a new word. For example:

Teacher: Say the word in.

Students: in

Teacher: Put the /f/ sound in front of the word in, and tell me the new

word (fin).

Students: fin

Sound Segmentation

• Choose selected words from the poem. Ask students to tell you what sounds they hear in each word. For example, say, and, then ask, What sounds do you hear in the word and?

Phoneme Manipulation

• Ask students to manipulate phonemes from selected words in the poems. For example, Take away the first sound in me and add the /h/ sound. What’s the new word (he)? Take away the last sound in the word but and add the /m/ sound. What’s the new word (bum)?

Using a Poem to Develop Phonemic Awareness Through Recitation and Rhyme

Students develop phonological awareness (awareness that language is made up of individual words, syllables, and sounds) as a result of being exposed to oral and written language. Using poems and chants in the supportive context of shared reading can improve students' development of attending to the sounds of the phonemes that they produce or listen to in speech. The following activities stimulate the development of phonological awareness during shared reading.

Recite the Poem

Help students learn the words of the poem by reading it or reciting it for them first. As you chant the poem, emphasize the rhythm and the rhyming words. Next, reread the poem line by line and have students repeat each line back to you in unison. The initial pace will be slow. Pick up the speed as students gain mastery until a fast, fluent pace is attained. Engage students in various activities in which they can recite the poem, sing the poem, clap to the poem, and act out the poem.

Rhyme Words

Once students know the poem by heart, it can be used to teach the concept of rhyme. The following activities can be used to enhance phonemic awareness and students' sense of rhyme.

• Divide the class into two groups. One group chants the poem but stops when it gets to a rhyming word. The second group then shouts the rhyming word that completes the sentence. For example:

Good News

Group One:Mother Nature took good …

Group Two:care

Group One:Of the water, land, and …

Group Two:air.

Group One:Then, careless people everywhere, hurt the earth. That's just not…

Group Two: fair.

Group One:But it's not too late, and that's good news… so Reduce, recycle and …

Group Two:reuse.

• Chant or recite a familiar poem. Stop after the rhyming words and ask students to say the words they heard that rhyme. As students identify the rhyming words, write them on index cards and put them in a pocket chart like the one on the following page.
• When reading a poem, stop before reading the second word of a rhyming pair, and ask students to predict the word before you continue.
• Ask students to close their eyes as you chant a familiar poem. Have them listen for changes that occur as you substitute words, swap words, or switch the order of events. Encourage students to explain what is wrong. This activity helps students attend to discrepancies between what they expect to hear and what they actually hear. For example: The Star
  

  Twinkle, twinkle, little car,
  How I wonder what you star!
  Up above the world so high,
  Like a diamond in the pie.

• After reading a familiar poem, give students one rhyming word and have them say another word in the poem that rhymes with the word given. When students respond with the rhyming word, follow up by asking them how the two words are alike. For example:

Teacher: What word in the poem rhymes with the word sound?

All: Ground!

Teacher: That's right. How are these words alike?

All: They both end with the - ound chunk.

• Have students name one of the rhyming word pairs in the poem that has the same spelling pattern. Next, have them locate the word in the poem. Finally, have students write the rhyming word on their wipe-off boards. Have them change the first letter(s) to make the second rhyming word.

Using a Poem to Clap Syllables

Clapping syllables assists students in separating words into parts. The following activities can help students develop control of hearing and identifying the number of syllables in a word.

• First, introduce the activity by demonstrating how to clap syllables with some of the students' names you have written on an index card. After each name has been pronounced, model how to clap. Then ask students to join in with you. Finally, ask, How many syllables did you hear?
• After students have learned the task, encourage them to count the syllables in their names.
• Use some of the word cards from a familiar poem. Say each word one at a time. Ask students to clap to show the number of beats in each word. Place each word in a pocket chart under the heading card that depicts the number of syllables for each word in that column. Example headings written on index cards: one syllable, two syllables, three syllables, etc. After about six to eight words have been clapped, show students (using the words in the pocket chart) that if a word has more syllables or claps, it will usually take more letters to write the word.
• As you pull words from the familiar poems, ask students which words are longer or shorter after they are clapped. Then, compare their responses with the words in print.
• Ask students to show you a word in the poem that has one syllable, two syllables, three syllables, etc.

Using a Poem to Activate Knowledge of Letters

Shared reading can be used to design mini-lessons that help beginning readers learn about letters, sound, spelling patterns, and words. During these mini-lessons, the teacher uses explicit language to prompt students to categorize, associate, link, and generalize information.

In the following example, a teacher directs emergent readers after the shared reading of a poem. The poem is “The Little Turtle".

Teacher: Let’s look at our poem about the turtle. Let’s reread these four lines. (She points as the students read the second stanza.)

All: He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow. And he snapped at me.

Teacher: (points to the words mosquito and minnow as she says them) What is it about these two words that is the same?

Several: They start the same.

Teacher: Good checking! Yes, they do begin with the same sound. (She uses the Focus Frame Card to highlight the m in the words mosquito and minnow.) These two words start with the letter m, just like one of the pictures on our alphabet chart. Who can find it?

Student: I can! Magnet!

Teacher: Yes! (hands a pointer to the student) Mosquito and minnow do start like magnet on the alphabet chart. Go and point to that box on the alphabet chart while we read it.

All: (chanting) M, m, magnet!

Teacher:Mosquito, minnow, and magnet all begin the same. Are there any other words in our poem that start like mosquito, minnow, and magnet?

Student:Me does! Mosquito, me!

Teacher: That’s super! Me does begin with the same sound and letter as mosquito, minnow, and magnet. Use this card (hands the student an appropriately-sized Focus Frame Card) to show me what letter in the word me makes the same sound as mosquito, minnow, and magnet.

(The student frames the m in me.)

Several: They start the same.

The teacher can also activate students’ knowledge of the first letters of words by having them locate words in the poem that start with a specific letter. These words are placed on a chart or in a pocket chart titled “Words That Start the Same". Add new words to the chart as new poems are read. For example:

Using Sentence Strips and Word Cards

As emergent/early readers begin to attend to visual information, the teacher can use the poetry sentence strips to help them reconstruct a poem. This activity can be done several different ways depending on the abilities of the students. The teacher may scaffold the task in three ways:

1. The teacher begins by passing out only two or three lines of the poem at a time, rather than the entire collection of sentence strips. The students reread the first line on the poetry chart, and the student holding that strip places it in the empty pocket chart. That line of text is reread as the student uses the pointer.
2. As students become more competent, the teacher can increase the level of the task by distributing all the sentence strips. As each line of the poem is reread, the student places the appropriate sentence strip in the pocket. Students use a pointer to point to and read their line after it has been placed.

Word Matching

The teacher cuts one set of poetry sentence strips into words. Students may then rebuild the poem with the word cards using the language of the poem to help confirm visual information. The students and the teacher reread the first line of the poem. Then, the teacher distributes the word cards for that line of text. The students reassemble the text in the pocket chart, rereading as each new word is added. For students who need additional support, the poetry sentence strip may be placed in the pocket chart and the word cards placed on top of the model sentence.

Using a Poem to Observe Spelling Patterns

• Explain to students that a spelling pattern is all of the letters after the first vowel in a syllable. Demonstrate with some words written on index cards (are and star). Have students identify the chunk or spelling pattern in each word and underline the spelling pattern (ar).
• Emphasize to students that they can hear the rhyme and see the spelling pattern. Place the index cards in a pocket chart and repeat with more rhyming pairs found in familiar poems.
• Tell students when they are reading or writing and come to a tricky word they don't know how to read or write, to think of other words they know that sound like (writing prompt) or look like (reading prompt) the tricky word. (It is also very important that the teacher use these same types of explicit prompts when students are reading and writing so they will know how to use the strategy of getting to new words by analogy.) Reading: Do you know a word that looks like this word? Writing: Do you know a word that sounds like this word?
• Figuring out new words by analogy is an important strategy. The following activity helps students practice with the assistance of the teacher. First, write two or three unknown words that rhyme and have the same spelling pattern as the sets of rhyming words in the pocket chart from a familiar poem. As each new word is written on an index card, have students identify the spelling pattern. Each new word is placed in the pocket chart in the same column of words with the same spelling pattern. Have students read the familiar rhyming words and then decode the new word by examining the spelling pattern.
• To help students see that sometimes words can rhyme but not have the same spelling pattern, use a poem with rhyming pairs that do not have the same spelling pattern (train and plane). Have students say the words and hear that they rhyme. Point out that the words do rhyme, but look different because they have different spelling patterns.

Using a Poem to Facilitate Knowledge About Onsets and Rimes

To extend students' awareness of experiences with analogy, use familiar poems to help students manipulate patterns in their heads.

• First, ask students to read the poem fluently. Then, ask them to name two words from the poem that rhyme (i.e., wall and small). Next, prompt students to segment a word and identify it. For example, If I take the w off of wall, what chunk is left? (-all) Then, ask students to take a different letter and put it in front of the chunk to make a new word. For example, Put an f in front of the chunk -all and what is the new word? (fall)
• Ask the students to locate a word in the poem based on the information that you give. For example: Find a word in the poem that starts like grass and rhymes with play. The students would then locate the word gray.
• The following excerpt shows how a teacher works with early readers as they examine spelling patterns within a poem. The poem Life on a Farm has been reconstructed in the pocket chart using the word cards. There is an empty pocket chart nearby.

Teacher: Let’s look at the poem that we just read. Who can find two words that rhyme?”

Several:Fed and red!

Teacher:Fed and red do rhyme! Let’s all say them as Charlie goes and gets the word cards out of the pocket chart.

All: Fed, red.

Teacher: Charlie, let’s put those two words in our empty pocket chart. Can you tell me how those words are alike?

Charlie: They both sound alike and have the -ed chunk.

Teacher: That’s right! You noticed that fed and red both have the -ed chunk. If I wanted to write the word bed, how could I use the words fed and red to help me?

Student:You could take off the f in fed and put a b on the front.

Teacher:Good job! I can keep the -ed chunk from fed and add a b to the beginning. (The teacher quickly writes the new word, bed, on the board.) Now, let’s see if bed looks like fed and red. (She points to the word cards in the pocket chart.)

All: Yes!

Teacher: (highlights the -ed chunk in bed with a focus frame card) Yes, they do look the same because they all have the -ed chunk. Write the new word, bed, on your practice board.

(They all write and check the word bed. The teacher writes led on an index card and places it in the pocket chart with fed and red.)

Teacher:What if I were reading a story and I came to this new word? (Writes led.) How could I figure it out?

Katie:It’s led!

Teacher: How do you know?

Katie: Because it has the -ed chunk just like fed and red. If you put an l on the -ed chunk you get led!

Teacher:That’s super! We can use fed and red to help us with the new word, led, because we know the -ed chunk.

As you can see, shared reading builds a listening and speaking vocabulary while providing many opportunities to build literacy knowledge. Additionally, shared reading may be used to assist English language learners with understanding word meanings in a whole group setting.