Shared reading is vital for every student to succeed in education. Reading in the classroom helps build knowledge, develop ideas, boost vocabulary, fuel creativity, and so much more. But we know that some students with additional special educational needs can struggle to develop their reading comprehension and engage in shared reading in different ways.

In recent research by Dessemontet et al. (2024), entitled ‘Effects of shared text reading for students with intellectual disability: A meta-analytical review of instructional strategies’, they explored the challenge and drew upon a range of research to compile a list of potential teaching strategies that could be considered for students with different needs that make reading a particular challenge.

Here are six of the approaches identified:

  1.  Least to most prompts. Teachers posed comprehension questions about the text, before waiting for a fixed number of seconds before then prompting support. Instead of jumping in with heavy support, they used the following type of graduated prompts:
  • Rereading the page or passage of the text containing the answer
  • Rereading the sentence containing the answer
  • Modelling the correct response by telling and either simultaneously showing the correct answer or showing it in a subsequent prompt
  • Using physical guidance to help the student select the correct response, and
  • Reminders to use scaffolds e.g. story maps or graphic organisers.

This approach links well to EEF guidance on teaching assistant scaffolding – see HERE.

  1. Explicit instruction of reading comprehension strategies. Prompts included strategies to predict, question, and summarise passages of the text. Other approaches prompted a focus on story structure (e.g. ‘characters, setting, problem, solution, outcome’), followed by completing a graphic organiser. A ‘self-questioning’ strategy was supported by the help of a graphic organiser with ‘wh-‘ words about the text (e.g. why, who, when, what)

Many of these approaches link well to the EEF evidence on reading comprehension strategies – see HERE.

  1. Using ‘wh-‘ words to boost comprehension. In some cases, students were taught to answer questions with wh-words by teaching them the definition prior to shared reading, with a graphic organiser or chart to illustrate the wh-words. One approach included training students to identify wh-words, with examples and non-examples, so they could notice details during the reading of the text.
  2. Vocabulary instruction using examples and non-examples. This commonly deployed strategy explicitly activates students’ prior knowledge and checks for understanding. Vocabulary instruction is consistently cited in literacy guidance – see HERE - but getting it right takes planning and a Goldilocks principle to ensure pre-teaching vocabulary works: not too many words taught as to overload, but not too few so the text is inscrutable.
  3. Picture-plus. One approach included the use of photos of the text’s key elements before reading the text aloud to activate prior knowledge. The photos were discussed and related to the text after the read aloud. This approach combines ideas about ‘dual coding’ and the need to activate and elaborate upon what students already know. The old adage, a picture is worth a thousand words, may give us a tip off for a helpful shared reading stategy!  
  4. The CAR model to boost book talk. The CAR model promotes a more structured approach to shared reading (Comment and wait; Ask questions and wait; Respond and add a little more), so that teachers remember to enshrine wait time into the talk routine, as well as to be more strategic about prompting discussion and emerging comprehension.

Having every student listen and comprehend what they read in class is no doubt a challenge. In a lot of the research, texts are adapted to be made accessible, which may not be able to be replicated in every classroom, so we should carefully interpret what the evidence suggests, but also put more supports in place to help teachers enact shared reading effectively for high need students.

What is clear in the wider evidence base is the solution for pupils who struggle with reading is not to only offer them a thin diet of levelled/banded reading, but instead to better scaffold the reading (and re-reading) of complex texts. This is harder, but necessary, and the above strategies offer a helpful starting point.

What is a positive is that the above strategies are not new to teachers, nor are there expensive ‘silver bullet strategies’. They are familiar and within the give of every teacher to deploy with some confidence. 

Shared reading, done well, may just be one of the most important things that students with special needs do and learn in classrooms, so focusing on doing is effectively is well worth our time. 

 

My new book - 'Literacy Essentials for Every Teacher' - is out this April. See Amazon HERE for preordering and Routledge HERE.