ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the central importance of talk in encouraging learning in reading lessons and the understandings that teachers need to develop when preparing to talk to pupils in guided reading. It considers how to ask genuine questions, how to respond to the content of pupils' contributions and how to build conversations that are likely to lead to developing pupils' thinking. The chapter explores the ways in which teachers and pupils can use talk productively when developing reading comprehension and response through guided reading. In reading sessions, where recitation-type talk dominates, the emphasis, inevitably, is tightly focused on literal comprehension of the text. In reading lessons, it is essential to move beyond teacher-led recitation type discourse. In classroom contexts, learning means that the interaction between teacher and pupils, as well as between the pupils themselves, has a central role in developing understanding and knowledge.
