The role of teaching assistants in the shared section of the literacy hour

Teaching assistant

Confident teaching assistants may move into a more pedagogical role in helping the teacher deliver the lesson. Examples might be:

• echoing the teacher by repeating, rewarding or refining teaching points (e.g. repeating or rephrasing instructions for pupils who are slow to respond: 'That's right – look for the speech marks'; 'See where Mrs Goodwin is pointing'; 'Remember what you've been told about sounding words out.')
• directing attention (e.g. pointing at the feature in the big book under discussion; running a finger beneath a script during reading aloud)
• taking part in a double act (e.g. working the puppet in a phonics game)
• acting as demonstrator (e.g. modelling how to scan a passage for the teacher, showing how to use a dictionary on a regular basis, demonstrating how one works out a spelling – a living exemplar)
• playing the 'devil's advocate' (e.g. raising questions or problems, pretending not to understand so the teacher can go through step-by-step tuition)
• playing Box and Cox – where the topic can be listed or staged in simple steps, taking turns with the teacher to explain each step, and thus helping maintain pupils' attention
• acting as the teacher's memory bank (e.g. 'Stephen's turn next'; 'John's not had his hand up for a while'; 'We said we'd go back to…'; 'I have a dictionary here…').