This paper examines the stated pedagogic understandings of one teacher in relation to her practice as expressed through interactions with two small groups of 7 year-old pupils, using a Bernsteinian socio-cultural framework. The pedagogic focus is ‘guided reading’, a small-group approach to the teaching of reading introduced to English primary teachers in 1998 by the National Literacy Strategy as part of a national campaign to improve standards of literacy. In view of findings that many teachers found guided reading difficult to implement, and had very variable understandings ( OFSTED 2004) , it appears timely to investigate the understandings and practice of teachers who have embraced it with enthusiasm and commitment. This paper relates to one of three participant teachers, an experienced practitioner with acknowledged expertise in teaching reading. At the heart of group interaction lies what Bernstein (1996: 12-13) terms the ‘framing’ principle of pedagogic discourse, defining this as ‘who controls what ... selection, sequencing, pacing, criteria and the social base...’ By analyzing framing relations within the lesson, a teacher’s pedagogic practice can be described in ways that imply pedagogic understandings which may, or may not , be congruent with those articulated in interview. This will also be interesting in relation to recent research which suggests that certain combinations of stronger and weaker framing may promote equality of access to learning for children from diverse backgrounds (Müller et al. 2004). In this study, data are collected from two lessons taught to children with different levels of reading proficiency, which both strengthens the evidence base and offers insights into the inclusivity of the pedagogy.

In this small-scale interpretive study, a semi-structured teacher interview is followed by close observation of a video-recorded guided reading lesson; this then becomes the basis of a subsequent teacher interview. Exploration of the relationship between these data layers enables a teacher’s pedagogic intentions to be revealed.

This is research in progress. The paper will explore to what extent the teacher’s stated pedagogic understandings are realized in her practice, and how she articulates these, with particular attention to the degree of consistency of approach when teaching groups of children with different learning needs. If, as has been claimed, English education has for many years lacked the overtly pedagogical underpinning more typical of Europe (Simon 1981; Alexander 2003), finely detailed small-scale research of this nature will contribute to current debate about the principles, purposes and values of literacy teaching in England and how this should best be realized in the interests of extending access to literacy for all children. It is hoped that an insight into a current approach to the teaching of reading in England will also be of interest to an international audience.