ABSTRACT
A culture defined by privileging reading, enjoying reading, sharing reading, better understanding reading and doing shedloads of it at every available opportunity. By offering ‘bounded choice’ – that is to say, options between reading choices we have selected for pupils – we can support their choice, which is particularly necessary for weaker readers. Promoting high-quality questioning in the classroom may just prove the most important way to promote the strategic thinking that improves our pupils’ reading. By promoting, structuring and modelling questions relentlessly, and integrating them into classroom reading routines, we help pupils at every stage of reading: before, during and after their reading. Reading and writing are literacy processes that are inextricably linked. It is clear that asking pupils to write about what they read can improve reading comprehension and so we should teach both together. Vocabulary instruction then should play an important part in our approach to teaching reading.
