Guided Reading Notes: Nell and the Cave Bear

‘Nell and the Cave Bear’ works very well as a guided reading text and these are my tried and tested notes. They are intended to be adapted by the teacher to suit the needs of the children they are used with so there is no intention, for example, that every question is used. Adults working with a group who need to develop their inference skills might include more of this style of questioning in a session.

The Stone Age setting of the book makes it ideal for using alongside this topic; however, it should not limit its use. As well as being a lovely story in its own right, it encourages children who have already learned about this period of history to recall and use their prior knowledge, making links between their learning and elements of the story. Conversely, if the children haven’t studied this period, the story will offer a basis for future learning as well as encouraging the children to share and develop their general knowledge.

Independent tasks need to be tailored to the needs of the group as well. I quickly realised that the children I was using the book with had little understanding of animals from this time and so I developed research materials on these and set the children independent tasks to develop research skills- using indexes and contents, simple note making, retrieval questioning, etc. I am happy to share these materials if anyone wants them- just email me.

You can find my Guided Reading notes here.