Guided Reading for Technical Texts
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Hand out a text like this one
Guided reading gets learners through a dense technical page: a risk assessment, a specification, a method statement. It takes about twelve minutes and needs one extract. It is for learners who give up as soon as a page looks hard, and at work nobody will read it to them.
The handout
Building a wall: risk assessment
Read across each row, not down.
| Hazard | Risk | Control measures |
|---|---|---|
| Manual handling of bricks and cement bags | Back strain, muscle injury | Use correct lifting techniques. Bend knees and keep loads close to the body. Ask for assistance with heavy loads. |
| Slips and trips | Cuts, falls, fractures | Keep work area tidy. Remove waste materials immediately. Store tools safely when not in use. |
| Cement dust | Eye irritation, breathing difficulties | Wear safety goggles and a dust mask. Avoid creating excessive dust. |
- Circle the words you do not know.
- Underline the key facts.
- Write one sentence for each paragraph or row.
Lesson WeaverMake this in Go ReadYour jobPut each question in its box.
Note 1 of 8
What injury could result from manual handling?
The handout
Building a wall: risk assessment
Read across each row.
| Hazard | Risk | Control measures |
|---|---|---|
| Manual handling of bricks and cement bags | Back strain, muscle injury | Use correct lifting techniques. Bend knees and keep loads close to the body. Ask for assistance with heavy loads. |
| Slips and trips | Cuts, falls, fractures | Keep work area tidy. Remove waste materials immediately. Store tools safely when not in use. |
| Cement dust | Eye irritation, breathing difficulties | Wear safety goggles and a dust mask. Avoid creating excessive dust. |
Where does it belong?
About twelve minutes (a suggestion), then four questions.
Why this works in your room
Seeing an expert read a hard text shows them how to read the next one.
For your learners: They can get through a risk assessment or a specification on their own, as they will have to at work.
For you: Your questions go past what can be found by pointing, so you see who understood it.
The text
One technical extract
A textbook page, specification or industry document. Read across the rows.
Three instructions on the sheet
Under the text
Circle the words you do not know. Underline the key facts. One sentence for each paragraph or row.
Row one: you, aloud
3 minutes
The word you are unsure of, the line you re-read. Reading it out is not thinking aloud.
Row two onwards: theirs
5 minutes, alone
Circle, underline, one sentence. You read sentences, not circles.
Discuss
4 minutes
Two or three sentences read out. Ask: how do you know?
Then four questions
Retrieval, vocabulary, inference, application
Four kinds of question on the same text, answered from it.
Elsewhere in Bradford ThreadWorks
Big 4Copilot: writing a simple prompt and asking for a draft, such as a summary, a starter or a quiz.Open Big 4 (opens in a new tab)- Lesson WeaverGo Read makes a Guided Reading handout, with the four question types and a summary of each paragraph for you.Open Lesson Weaver (opens in a new tab)
WalkThrusChunking: breaking a hard text into parts.Open WalkThrus (opens in a new tab)
Prompts to paste into Copilot
Two prompts to paste into Copilot. They are our own wording, not Big 4 training. Change what is in brackets, and leave out learners' names.
Four questions for my document
Here is a technical document I am giving to [level] [subject] learners. [paste the text]. Write four questions on it: one retrieval (answer stated in the text), one vocabulary (what a subject word means as used here), one inference (implied but not stated), and one application (using it in a practical situation from the course). Give the answers.
My think aloud
Here is the first section of a technical text for [level] [subject] learners. [paste it]. Write what an expert in this trade might say aloud while reading it for the first time: one word they are unsure of and how they work it out, one line they re-read, and one link to what came before. Keep it under 80 words and in plain speech.
Every subject's own texts
The Education Endowment Foundation's literacy guidance asks each subject to teach learners to read the kinds of text that subject uses, and to teach its vocabulary on purpose.
EEF, Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools (opens in a new tab)Modelling, then handing over
Modelling how an expert reads and summarising as you go are reading comprehension strategies. The EEF Toolkit rates them among the highest-impact, lowest-cost approaches it lists.
EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: reading comprehension strategies (opens in a new tab)How sure is this?
Fairly. Modelling, summarising and asking beyond retrieval are well supported, mostly from schools. The circle, underline and summarise routine is from the college's CPD deck, Reading Across the Curriculum, which also gives the risk assessment and four of the eight questions. The other four are ours.
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