Literature or Reading circles are small groups of students who meet in the classroom to talk about stories. Each student reads the story and prepares their Reading Circle role for the classroom discussion.
Reading circles combine all language skills and help motivate students to acquire both the habits of reading extensively and of working autonomously.
Having gone through the experience of participating in a Reading Circle yourselves, what are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing this technique in your classrooms in order the create a real reading environment?
In what other ways can a reading environment be created?
7 comments:
One advantage implementing this technique in our classrooms is that everyone has an objective while reading so, everyone participates and learn in details about the novel or piece of reading, and from different perspectives.
One disadvantage that I find is that you need a lot of time to hold an activity like this and some students could get bored and misbehave while the rest of the students want to finish with their analysis.
I haven't participated in the Reading Circle last week but I think it is an interesting experience to present to our students.
Some years ago I had a reduced group of students. So, I used to take them to the school library once a week. They chose a book to read and then they carried out a task. That year, the students were very enthusistic about this idea. They started to take home a book to read with their families during the weekends.
Giving a task to each Stdnt will help to get them engaged in the activity, I do have the same fear with the timiing of the activity, If they don`t have the same level they will get bored & misbehave. Anyway it worths a try!
Ale.
Thanks for your contributions! I was wondering... this is one possible way of creating a reading environment in our classrooms...
Gisela mentions yet another one... taking students to the school library.
Can you think of any other ways of enhancing our classrooms so that reading in facilitated in some way or the other?
Another way of enhancing our classrooms can be that each student reads one part of a chapter aloud and when she/he stops, the rest of the class can ask questions to the teacher if they haven't understood something related to whether the story or the vocabulary. Finally, students work on some activities about the chapter they read.
I found the experience of Reading Circle enjoyable and useful. I have the feeling that the Reading Circle can be implemented in our classrooms. One of the advantages
is that it allows every student to participate during the activity as everyone has to read the same story from a different point of view. This will inevitably lead to a deeper analysis of the story which I found to be another great advantage, especially for us, teachers,because we can get to know every learners´point of view and apart from that, they will feel involved, which is also important to help them develop their self-confidence, as every student has the opportunity to stay their own views.
The disadvantage is that this kind of activity takes lots of time to be performed and as I see it, it can only be used with teenagers whose level of english is as good as to be able to talk about a story and to make a deep analysis of it. What I think is that this kind of
activity can be implemented with students in a simple way and to make it more complex once they have
understood each role of the reading circle, I mean, work with it by going detail by detail in order to make the most of the reading circle experience.
A reading environment can be created in different ways,depending on the age of the students. For instance, in kindergarten when I read a story, we sit around in a
circle making everyone be part of the story. I read the story, but while I am reading it I make them participate in it so they get more involved in it. Another way of creating a reading environment, for primary level, is to divide the class in groups, cut a story into pieces and give one part of the story to each group. Then, each group tells their own part of the story and once each group has presented its part, the whole class will work together in order to put the story in the correct order. Then, the teacher will read the story for them to enjoy!
Hi Gabriela!
There is a lot written about literature circles for little children as well... Have you checked yourself? It may be difficult at the beginning but once they understand the importance of playing different roles, they love it!!!
Wonderful ideas for creating a motivating reading environment... and jigsaw reading is a very appealing task indeed!!
Cheers,
Silvia
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