Guided to Guider: the “∼ed” and “∼er” roles in professional development materials for guided Reading

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper takes a social semiotic, Bernsteinian, view of the language used to describe the Guided Reading teaching strategy in Professional Development session materials for in-service teachers in Australia. We use categories from Michael Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar and Ruqaiya Hasan’s stylistics to demonstrate a radical discontinuity between content and form. While the content of the professional development materials makes the case for greater child dynamism in reading, the grammatical roles assigned to the children by the language forms are generally less dynamic than those assigned to the teacher. We propose two changes. First, classroom language should aim at increasing child “∼er” roles. Secondly, the language of professional development materials ought to reflect, and if possible, appropriate and speak through that classroom language.