Literature circles and boosting childrens reading for enjoyment

1
Literature circles and boosting childrens
reading for enjoyment

• Experiences of Schools in Scotland

2
What are literature circles?

• Literature circles are like adult book-groups.
  Children meet regularly in class to discuss a
  book. Groups form on the basis of book choice
  rather than on how well children read.

3
What happened in classes that set up literature
circles?

• Children gained autonomy and enthusiasm for
  reading
• They also began to ask to set up additional groups

4
What else happened?

• Parents said that their children had
  spontaneously been discussing books at home.
• Both boys and girls were a lot more positive
  about reading in school.
• And they read more books too!

5
What about low attainers?

• Children with the lowest reading scores really
  wanted to participate in the literature circles,
  and taking part improved their attitudes towards
  reading.

6
Good news for boys 1.

• Literature circles worked particularly well for
  boys
• They read more for pleasure at home and got
  totally absorbed in their book
• They also recommended books to friends!

7
Good news for boys 2.

• The receptive vocabulary of boys improved
  i.e. they recognised words when they saw or heard
  them.

8
How did literature circles work best?

• Literature circles worked best when teachers
  had prepared the groundwork to facilitate
  purposeful collaboration.

9
Pupil autonomy was important

• Literature circles were most successful when
  pupils played a real part in selecting the book
  and when the groups met on a regular basis.

10
What did the teachers learn?

• Teachers began to question and develop their
  views of how to foster reading attitudes and
  attainment.

11
What were the challenges? 1

• Teachers needed to learn how to value talk as
  well as to empower children to work within
  literature circles.

12
What were the challenges? 2

• Giving children book choices had financial
  implications as it meant buying multiple copies
  of books. Head teachers had to think of cost
  effective ways of doing this.

13
Why did the literature circles work? 1

• They provided teachers with the chance to
  promote reading for enjoyment by harnessing the
  social networks that existed within the class.

14
Why did the literature circles work? 2

• They promoted reading as an active and
  desirable social activity, rather than an
  essentially private and individual one.

15
About the study

• The Scottish Executive study looked at teachers
  and pupils experiences of setting up literature
  circles. It also looked at the impact on pupils
  attainment and attitudes. It involved 96 pupils,
  3 primary teachers and one secondary teacher
  across 4 schools.

16
Where to find out more

• Literature circles, gender and reading for
  enjoyment
• J. Allan, S. Ellis and C. Pearson Department of
  Childhood and Primary Studies (University of
  Strathclyde)
• Published November 2005
• www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/SRLitCir

17
Feedback on this presentation

• Please pass this research bite on to other
  colleagues who may find it useful
• Please let us know if you have any comments on
  this research bite and or you would like to
  receive future ones in the series
  victoria1.white_at_dfes.gsi.gov.uk