Small group instructional reading (SGIR) strategies for Independent readers Reader’s Circle Aidan Chambers (1994) Virginia Outred 2013

This strategy takes the form of a group ‘Book Club’ where children participate in discussions about a text with the teacher as a guide.

Readers’ Circle involves each group of students selecting a text to read. The students individually read an agreed part of the text and come together to explore their understanding and interpretations of the text.

Benefits include: the students taking responsibility to read independently between sessions the development of strategies for making meaning the development of understanding that there are different interpretations of the same text the involvement of students in deeply reading a variety of text types.

The Procedure Choose a text together initial discussion should focus on the cover, the author and blurb as you lead the group to make predictions on content. After beginning the reading in their own time the group will come together on a weekly basis with the teacher to discuss responses to the text.

Keeping notes about their likes, dislikes, patterns and puzzles will assist them to participate in the discussion. Model this procedure to the whole class first using a picture book. Possibly use one group as a demo group in a fishbowl technique to model the discussion.

Sample questions to guide the discussion: Tell me…when you first saw this book, even before you read it, what kind of a book did you think it was going to be? Can you tell me what made you think this? Now you have read the text is it as you expected? Tell me about anything that particularly caught your attention?

What will you tell your friends about it? Tell me about the parts you like most. Tell me about the parts you didn’t like. Did you notice things in the story that made a pattern?

We’ve listened to each others thoughts about the text, and heard all sorts of things about what we’ve each noticed. Are you surprised by anything someone else said? Tell me what the author was trying to tell the reader in this text?

The discussion does not begin and end with ‘likes, dislikes, patterns and puzzles’ This is merely the catalyst to deeper conversation.

The strategy is more suited to fiction texts It is important to find a suitable text at the appropriate interest and reading level for the small group of students participating. Students should have some choice over the selection of the text Students can negotiate how much of the text is to be read between ‘meeting’ sessions

Follow up? Weekly ‘journal’ entries Writing about the main question from the discussion in a response format Decide on a way to ‘share’ the book with other groups (poster, play, book ‘trailer’) Follow up with related texts.