A1: Usually, the adult modelling and support provided during shared reading enables children with learning or literacy difficulties to access texts which are age-appropriate but would be too difficult for them to read independently. If this is not the case, consider pre-tutoring: having the child spend time with a teaching assistant, a more able peer, an older child, or someone at home, sharing and discussing the text beforehand.

Make sure that children are given an active role: for example, ask them to be 'full stop spotters', give them their own copy of the text to highlight or underline, use 'whole body' activities such as sculpting scenes from the text or pretending to be a word, sentence or punctuation mark that gets moved around.

If a child can only sit and listen for five minutes at a time then don't expect them to sit for twenty: have a target for them to sit for six minutes, then seven, then eight, and plan something for them to move off quietly and do when the target is met.

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Q2: How can I differentiate the questions I use in the shared time, to include all children?

A2: To do this, you need to have identified the learning objectives that you want both the less able and the more able children to work on in the context of the lesson. This will allow you to plan two or three specific questions to ask them directly (a better questioning technique than 'hands up'). If they can't answer a question, try not to move on to another child or say 'Who can help X?' Instead, stay with the child and provide scaffolding (for example, linking the question to something they already know) until they are able to answer.

Use open questions as well as closed questions; give children thinking time or time to talk with a partner before answering; use alternatives to questions to invite a response, for example making suggestions from which the children can choose, speculating, or making a personal contribution from own experience. The NLS leaflet Talking in class (NLS506-1) gives more detail on using approaches like these.

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Q3: How can I make guided reading work for the least able when the text will be harder than instructional level for the least able?

A3: Texts for guided reading must be at instructional level. You may need to sub-divide your groups to ensure greater homogeneity.

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Q4: Where can I find texts for SEN pupils?

A4: Several publishers produce high interest-level, low reading-level books; your LEA SEN support service should be able to make suggestions. A particularly helpful publication is Bridging Bands for Guided Reading: Resourcing Diversity into KS2, from the Reading Recovery National Network at the Institute of Education (ISBN 0864736905).

Look out for books with simple text but appropriate language quality, where layout and supportive illustrations are used to good effect. Take care to include a range of text types, including poetry, ICT texts and non-fiction.

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Q5: How do I manage guided reading when there is no group at the same level for my SEN child to join?

A5: It may be possible to bring together a group of children from several classes for guided reading sessions. If this is not possible, then you will need to plan one-to-one guided reading for this child. Make sure, though, that you include the child in other types of reading experience as a member of a group, play-reading for example, using playscripts with parts at different levels of difficulty, or small-group discussion about a text. This might be a text you have read to them (the class novel) or might be based on age-appropriate picture books or simple ICT texts.

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Q6: Should we still do one-to-one reading, and if so, when?

A6: The more difficulties children have with reading, the less they tend to read. This compounds their initial difficulty, so it is especially important to give these children as much experience of one-to-one supported reading as possible, in addition to guided reading. The one-to-one reading might be with someone at home, a teaching assistant, an older child in school, or a friend in class.

Paired reading is a simple technique that works very well: the child and their 'partner' start off reading out loud together, using any text that the child has chosen and wants to read; when the child feels ready, they give a signal (such as knocking on the table) and then read alone until they get stuck on a word or make a mistake. At this point, the partner joins in again and the pair read together until the child signals that they want to read alone again. Alternation continues in this way.

When planning time for this, remember you only need to identify times when children who do not have reading difficulties would be getting this kind of 'volume' experience in their reading. This might be at home. Or it might be in other areas of the curriculum: paired reading can take place in a history or geography lesson, for example. Or it might be while the register is being taken, or after lunch, at those times you set aside for silent reading and other individual or group reading activities. Remember also that independent reading of a familiar text (one that has recently been worked on in a guided session) is an invaluable way of giving less fluent readers reading practice and experience.

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Q7: How can I get my children with SEN to work independently?

A7: What activities can I give them to do when they can't work on their own? Especially when they can't read and write!
You can find some good ideas for activities in the NLS publication Supporting pupils with special educational needs in the literacy hour (DfES0101/2000), on Handouts 14 and 15 in Module 3. There are also ideas on a chart called 'Alternatives to written recording' in the more recent NLNS publication Including all children in the literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson (DfES0465/2002 ).

Children will need to be actively taught core routines for certain tasks, practising them with progressively less help until they can quickly tell you and show you what they have to do if you ask them to do that type of task. They need to be given independent tasks that have previously been modelled for them in the shared time. Sometimes it helps to give them more complex independent tasks towards the end of the week, when they have seen other children demonstrate their learning in the plenary.

They will need very clear guidelines: 'I expect you to have produced at least three lines by ten past ten; I will be asking you then to share these with your writing partner.'

Visual prompts in the form of pictorial task cards will help, as will support in the form of writing frames, word mats, relevant classroom displays, and prompts such as a card with ideas for 'Five things to do if you are stuck with your work'.

One problem may be that if you always seat children with learning difficulties together in one group, they have only their own more limited resources to fall back on when they get into difficulties. You might want to try varying your classroom organisation: where you or a teaching assistant are working directly with a group for guided work, then children need to be at the same level, but otherwise children should have opportunities to undertake collaborative tasks in mixed ability groups, or work on independent tasks alongside more able children.

Whatever strategies you adopt, remember that all children need to learn the skills of working independently. Teaching them these skills is likely to be the most powerful contribution you can make to their future success in school.

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Q8: How can I best use a support assistant, s/he is only funded to work with one child but the child doesn't need help all the time?

A8: You can generally deploy your support assistant flexibly as long as you have a good partnership with the child's parents, and have secured their complete understanding of and agreement to your plans. The only exception to this might be where a child has a Statement of SEN which specifies or quantifies a particular type and amount of support; this must of course always be adhered to.

Most parents will see that if the additional adult is always at their child's side, this can get in the way of the child's development, independence and friendships. Most will want to see support deployed to help their child work successfully with others in pairs or groups. They are interested in the progress their child is making: if this is good, they will not want every minute of an assistant's time accounted for. It is only when you are not able to show what your objectives are for the child, how you draw on a range of additional provision to achieve them (including other school provision funded from the school's own resources), and the progress made, that they look to hold the school to account in terms of time allocated to one-to-one support.

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Q9: How can we develop independence in pupils and stop their over-reliance on teaching assistants?

A9: This links to the question above. It is important to plan times when the assistant will deliberately step back, for periods of increasing length, from direct involvement with the child. You can set targets with the child to make clear what they need to do at these times: 'Today you are going to show me your good listening and looking while we are all together on the carpet, without X sitting with you. At the end, I want you to tell X how you think you did.'

Training for teaching assistants is also important. Have them watch you work with individuals or a group, noting the ways in which you provide scaffolding for children without doing the task for them.

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Q10: How can I get children to write properly when they can't speak properly?

A10: You will want to plan additional work on speaking and listening within your literacy hour for these children: seek advice from your SENCO, local special school or LEA SEN support services and literacy team on appropriate activities and materials. Look out for forthcoming revised guidance on teaching speaking and listening from QCA and the NLS. The NLS publication Developing early writing ( DfES0055/2001) will also be helpful here, as it gives many examples of writing developing out of rich and stimulating oral work. The NLS intervention programmes Early Literacy Support ( DfES0650/2001) for Y1 and Further Literacy Support (DfES0359/2002) for Y5 include a clear focus on speaking and listening.

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Q11: Is it appropriate for children with speech and language difficulties to learn phonics, when often they can't say the sounds?

A11: There is increasing evidence that work on phonics can play a key role in developing these children's ability to hear and reproduce the sounds in words. You may need to adapt the pace of phonic teaching, choose sounds to start with that are easier to discriminate, provide lots of prompting, and link gestures to sounds (as in the Jolly Phonics materials, for example), but don't avoid this key area of learning. If the child has severe difficulties, seek advice on teaching strategies from a speech and language therapist if at all possible. For children with less severe difficulties, there is good advice on page 165 of the NLS file Supporting pupils with special educational needs in the literacy hour (DfES0101/2000). You may also want to look at examples of teaching phonics to children with speech and language difficulties in the publication Teaching the literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson in special settings: video case studies (DfES0198/2003).

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