Shared Reading

One of our favorite periods during the school day is our shared reading time.  After lunch, students return to the classroom and sit in our reading circle, anticipating our next exciting story.  We use shared reading time to discuss, comment, and respond to the story, and we use a lot of thinking, comprehension and communication skills.  After the story, we follow up with a shared writing activity. 

I've always been a firm believer in a balanced literacy program, but shared reading time has always been a stumbling block in a high school self-contained classroom.  On one hand, in order to be effective, shared reading has to be engaging to the listener.  In order to be engaged, the story should be at or slightly above a student’s receptive language skills.  But in current best practice, curriculum must also be “age-appropriate”, therefore in most cases that means adapting novels that most high school-aged students are assigned to read.  Think of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Catcher in the Rye” with one line of simple text per page, and abridged to about 10 pages.  I want to presume that my students have the competence to understand the complexity of the story when it is so drastically abridged, but I can’t help but think there is too much that is lost when the story is simplified to that reading level. 

As luck would have it, I came across a writer and blogger that “gets” what reading and passionate learning should be about.  Pernille Ripp often reads picture books to her 5^th and 7^th grade students.  Many of the books she suggests have complex themes, but the illustrations and readability of the text helps scaffold the content for emerging readers.  My students really enjoy all of the stories we've read so far this year, and each time we read, a little more “air” is breathed into the story.  They pick up on inferences, deepen their understanding of the theme, and find new topics of interest.  Our conversations about the texts are becoming deeper and broader.

If at some point we receive funds to purchase curriculum for our classrooms, I would love to take a look at some new comprehensive literacy programs.  The Start-to-Finish Core Curriculum by Don Johnston is one program that looks promising.  This year, my district will be purchasing the Unique Learning System for our students in October.   It covers all core subject areas with literacy-based instruction.  But I think we will continue our shared reading of picture books because it has been so instrumental in demonstrating to my students that literacy is important for learning, enjoyment, and sharing with others.

Illustration from Pete and Pickles by Berkeley Breathed.  Pete is vacuuming a gravesite with a tombstone that reads “Paprika Dear Wife”.  Storm clouds are brewing around a house on a hill in the background.