Whole-class reading might be engaging, but does it give students enough chance to practise?

Sometimes it’s worth repeating the obvious, just in case anyone missed it. Everyone should watch The Wire, Scottish hopes of footballing success are rarely fulfilled, and Tim Shanahan’s website is one of the best sources of information about literacy on the internet. Shanahan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago, and has led the US Government’s National Reading Panel. In November 2017 on his blog, he fielded a question about the effectiveness of whole-class reading approaches, where one student reads aloud while their classmates follow the text. It’s hard to think of a more relevant question to primary and secondary teachers than how they should read with their class, so although the debate isn’t new, it’s worth recapping and exploring which aspects remain unanswered. Avoiding strawmen Discussions about whole-class reading can be muddied by terminology. Names for whole-class reading include ‘Round Robin Reading’, ‘Popcorn