What is Shared Reading?

Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a big book or other enlarged text while guided and supported by an ‘expert’. The text is read with fluency and expression and the reader models how we read, the process and the strategies we use. The text should be big enough for everyone to read rather than everyone having their own books…this keeps them focused on what you what to teach!

Some of the benefits of Shared Reading:

• Children can access texts that they might not be able to read independently
• All feel successful as they read as part of a group and ‘feel’ like readers
• Helps children see the connection between print and oral language, background knowledge and new information
• Focuses on and helps develop concepts about print and phonemic connections
• Helps in teaching frequently used vocabulary
• Helps develop a sense of story and increases comprehension

As part of the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2016, the Scottish Book Trust are promoting a Shared Reading ethos in schools.

Interested in developing Shared Reading in your school, click the image above to download the Scottish Book Trust’s Shared Reading pack. This can be developed through the Broad General Education and into the Senior Phase. This provides practical suggestions where learners can support the reading development of one another and older learners can act as Literacy Mentors.

This is one way which older pupils in the Primary and in Secondary could support the Primary 1 Family Book Bug Pack.

CLICK HERE – Shared Reading Case Studies