Working with a formal reading scheme in 2nd Class – Ginn – Advice for Parents

Dear Parents,

For the time being we are working on a formal reading scheme.

Many children have started the Ginn Readers.

Others are working hard on a separate scheme with Mrs. F 🙂

 

Advice about reading (Ginn Readers)

First of all don’t feel you have to read a full book in a night!

 

From Level 4, (Green cover) it is quite ok for you, the parent

to read every 2nd page to the child.

Reading these books takes quite a bit of  ‘reading stamina’,

so if you take every 2nd page, that will help.

 

Alternating who reads the story in this way,

also helps the pace and the ‘flow’ of the story.

 

But one of the most useful things about this approach

is that your child will ‘model’ their reading on yours.

This means that they will pick up on

how you use expression when you read

and how you observe punctuation.

Now that your child is reading more fluently,

it is important to check that your child

understands what they are reading.

For this reason, as you read with them it is a good idea

to check their comprehension by asking them

incidental questions about the story.

 

So you might ask;

‘What do you think might happen next?’

Or after you have read a story with your child you might ask

‘What happened in this story’ or ‘What was your favourite bit?’

Poems feature in some of the higher levels of the Ginn readers.

The vocabulary in them is a bit trickier.

Persevere certainly,

but don’t worry about getting them word perfect.

 

Throughout the Ginn series I have found that there are book/stories

that boys enjoy more than the girls do and visa versa.

e.g. ‘Helicopters’ (Level 4) and also in the later Ginns (from Level 6).

 

If your child is finding a story most uninteresting,

there is no need to labour over them.

In this way reading is enjoyable for you and your child.

 

PS. I have assigned the reading level according to the

Standardised Test results of last term.

If the level is too simple (or too hard) for your child,

not to worry; I will adjust this in a day or two.

 

I assigned a level that might be too easy rather than too hard,

as it is better for a child’s confidence in themselves as a reader

to be promoted up a level rather than demoted.

 

When we have finished Level 8,

we will read from Teacher’s box of ‘real books.’

In January we will begin our class novel

‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark’ by Jill Tomlinson.

 

If you want to see how we are getting along on our Reading Journey

please take a look at This Year’s Reading Journey

 

I can see from reading over the plan for this year,

that we are ahead of ourselves!

I am happy that we are making steady progess with our reading

and improving in fluency and comprehension every day.

This review from Amazon.com:

The GINN series of readers are commonly used in schools and is of a very high standard.

They are well designed, provide a wide variety of stories within each book.

Each book is dedicated to a theme.

The books can include fiction, non-fiction and poetry and cover different cultures.

The stories range from informative, factual, fantasy, amusing and educational both in facts and life.

They often have an amusing twist at the end.

Illustrations are excellent and the pages appealing to the eye.

On many occasions, children will chose to read further than requested by the teacher as they are caught up in the story.

The only slight criticism is that some of the poetry can be much tougher to read within a level than the stories within the same book….but then again, this is true in adult poetry too.

Each level steps up at a reasonable pace so the child isnt swamped at the next level.

Highly recommended.

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