Shared Reading
Implementing the shared reading program into literacy education in elementary, especially Kinder to Grade 2, advances reading ability, understanding and comprehension. Based on research by Don Holdaway (1979), the Shared Reading program works to build on the students’ own experiences with reading. Benefits to this type of reading experience have been extensively researched and documented. This program helps you to implement this expertise, and fine tune it to your learning environment.
Benefits to the Shared Reading Program
• Provokes Reading-like Behaviors
• Transitions From Oral Language to Written Language
• Rereading For Deeper Comprehension
Case studies continue to show that children exposed to reading frequently at home exhibit reading-like behaviors. Studies have even shown evidence that children move from forming stories orally to written, helping drive home the importance of the shared reading approach. The most astounding evidence that the foundation for the shared reading system is that of it’s results.
How Does Shared Reading Work?
As the name suggests, the experience of reading is shared amongst a group, allowing for a collaboration of reading over an enlarged text. During this experience, the students and teacher participate in unison, reading the same text. The setting is both relaxed and interactive, encouraging interaction for every ability level. The carefully selected works of fiction and nonfiction chosen to maximize this program include poems, songs, chants, and books. Each one unique in it’s ability to capture the reader’s attention with their pattern, repetition, rhythm and rhyme, simplicity, and appeal.
Each student rapidly expands their own competencies through the introduction of a more advanced vocabulary, more developed characters, and more sophisticated plots. Students are exposed to the materials, in their whole, multiple times, building their confidence of comprehension. The first reading is about enjoyment and general understanding of the characters, story line and plot. Rereading allows for the teacher to focus on teaching specific skills and strategies appropriate for the group. They invite students to participate in a deeper way through the use of simple retellings.
Tracking Performance During Shared Reading
The teacher is doing much of the work during a Shared Reading program. Therefore, it should be observation that triggers where students are performing individually during these lessons. Here are some behaviors that may be observed.
- Are students joining in with the group? Are they listening, following along, and beginning to join in and predict the patterns of the story?
- Note if students are enjoying the reading experience. Do they want to reread the book, talk about the book, or enjoy repeating the familiar patterns of the text?
- Can students use the title and pictures to predict what the story will be about? Can they use the text pattern and pictures to predict and understand the text?
- Do they read with expression—varying their voice and pitch and demonstrating phrasing—as they read aloud?
- Do they listen with comprehension? Can they retell the story? Can they describe the main ideas in an informational text?
- Are they able to recognize book and print conventions? Do they read the written text from left to right and from top to bottom? Are they beginning to recognize punctuation marks?
- Can they recognize high-frequency words and recognize them in a variety of texts?
- Can they match the oral vocabulary with the illustrations and photographs?
Other, more specific elements of literacy development may also be observed and tracked. We recommend attempting to being with 20 minutes a day for Shared Reading, as even this little amount of time has been seen to spark a love of books and learning.
Let’s launch young readers into literacy through Shared Reading . . . and let’s have fun while doing it!