Literature Circles: the Impact That They Have Upon Reading Comprehension in Intermediate Level Classrooms

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Literature Circles: the Impact That They Have Upon Reading Comprehension in Intermediate Level Classrooms Literature Circles 1 Literature Circles: The impact that they have upon Reading Comprehension in intermediate level classrooms. Author: Maren Aldrich Literature Circles 2 Literature Circles 3 Abstract This study was focused on literature circles and the impact that they have over a student’s reading comprehension at the fourth and fifth grade level within a suburban school district. The focal students were six fourth grade students and five fifth grade students, three of which had Individualized Education Programs. Teachers, students, and parents were interviewed and observed in their learning for the time of literature circles for half of the school year in order to see progress or digression in their reading comprehension. In the observations of the students in their literature circles it was abundantly clear that they were becoming more engaged in the conversations and readings. It would be more telling to observe a third grade classroom to see their interactions because they are a part of the intermediate level. Literature Circles 4 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………..pg. 5 Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………pg. 5-6 Review of Literature……………………………………………………pg. 6-10 Methods…………………………………………………………………pg. 10-16 Findings…………………………………………………………………pg. 16-20 Implications……………………………………………………………..pg. 20-21 Conclusion/Limitations…………………………………………………pg. 21-22 Appendices………………………………………………………………pg. 23-25 References……………………………………………………………….pg. 26 Literature Circles 5 The focus of this research paper is to determine whether or not literature circles can be used as the basis for improving a student’s reading comprehension. There are many components that are addressed to reach the answer to this question. The sociocultural theory is the foundation to a lot of research and theorists have been able to find that literature circles are an essential asset to learning. The simple question of what literature circles are, which leads to the engagement of readers, and ultimately their reading comprehension will lead to the findings of this study. The participants in this study along with the background of the school are included to give some information as to what students were learning and where. Limitations and implications are made available to see what other avenues are available to the students as well as to the teacher. The information that is provided will show that literature circles are an important aspect of a child’s learning. Reading comprehension is a major factor is some students’ learning and with the use of literature circles in the classroom, students’ will be able to improve upon this aspect of their learning. You will also find that along with ELA, literature circles seemed to help improve upon the attitudes towards other content area subjects. The main intended goal, however, was to prove if literature circles were a positive tool for learning to promote success within reading comprehension. Theoretical Framework Literature circles are consistent with the sociocultural and the New Literacy Studies. The New Literacy Studies demonstrates that literacy is not only cognitive but also communicative within small groups. (Larson & Marsh, 2005). The sociocultural theory is mainly based upon the idea of community and how to get children involved in the world around them. Children are Literature Circles 6 living in a society that is constantly changing and they need to know how to adapt and change with the world around them. (Larson & Marsh 2005) According to sociocultural theory, children are constantly interacting with the people around them, and this is an important part of literacy. It is essential for children to learn new things and they need to learn them from an abundance of resources. One way is that children need to learn from real-life situations that are happening around them. This is the basis of the sociocultural theory, in that children are learning from their everyday interactions, including their peers within their own classroom. (Larson & Marsh, 2005) Literature circles are related to this theory in this particular way because students are interacting and gaining new insight from their peers. When students choose their own books, it shows a common interest among students. This common interest builds toward a community, which is the basis of the sociocultural community. Larson and Marsh define this theory as, “theory that presents a culturally focused analysis of participation in everyday life, in both formal and informal settings.” (Larson & Marsh, 2005) Review of Literature Literature circles can be defined in several ways, but all researchers agree that student choice is a primary factor as well as the need for a teacher to facilitate the development of a successful group. Research indicates that literature circles are used inside of the classroom within small groups that are based upon a student’s interest of literature. (Greef, 2002) Greef also addresses the issue of using literature circles within the home by taking strategies learned within the school setting. Casey (2008) uses the term literature circles interchangeably with that of book clubs and states that these terms can be used to mean the same thing. She also uses research from Daniels (2002) that states that student selection of the texts that they read are Literature Circles 7 “among the key pieces.” Also, Casey (2008) enforces the teacher’s role as a facilitator within the book clubs by providing the students with the tools that they need for a successful group. Harvey Daniels is seen to be the “inventor” of the literature circles because he has an abundant amount of research that is based upon this activity. He discusses the importance of the “roles” and how they are used within the literature circles. Once the students’ start to use the literature circles, it is important for them to use the roles that are given to them to help with the organization. After a period of time in using them, the students will be able to interact and use the literature circles to their benefit and they will be more independent. The main influence that Daniels has is that he is able to fully explain what literature circles are and how they are used within the classroom to promote reading comprehension Literature circles are becoming more and more present inside the classrooms as a way of instilling the strategies of guided reading but in such a way that students can interact on their own. Literature circles can even be compared to book clubs in the way that students are choosing their own books and materializing their own questions that will lead conversations. Harvey Daniels states, “the consistent outcome is that kids are falling in love with books they have chosen.” (Daniels 2006) Implementing Literature Circles Implementing literature circles is a process that needs to be carried out over a period of time in order to ensure the success of the groups, which includes teacher models and maps of how literature circles will be ran. In contrast to guided reading groups, literature circles are a way for children to share their thoughts and ideas about texts that are of interest to them. According to research conducted by Lloyd (2004), implementing literature circles are a way to engage students in reading as well as gain independence for their own reading. She argues that Literature Circles 8 in using round-robin reading, students do not gain the understanding of engaged conversation and in using small groups, students are more able to participate in conversation. She also found that in letting students choose their own reading material, they became more engaged in their reading and were more apt to comprehend the text. Lloyd’s (2004) research showed that using interesting questions the students formulated, in turn, made the students anticipation grow. The research by Berne and Clark (2008) indicated that by having the teacher model their own literature circle prior to student literature circles, would be a benefit to implementation. Lloyd (2004), Berne and Clark (2008) both show that using a chart to map out student literature circles is a good structure to use throughout the meeting times. Engaging Readers Another study that was conducted has shown that in allowing students to engage in literature circles on the very first day, students are becoming engaged in the learning process. Lloyd (2004) engages students in the learning process on the first day of literature circles whereas Berne and Clark (2008) implement teacher roles for the first two days and then include students. Berne and Clark address the topic of teacher given prompts that are provided to the students. Both researchers monitor one literature circle at a time, as this leads to only one literature group working at a given time. Lloyd (2004), however, focuses on the idea that students should lead their own conversations because they will engage more in the meaning behind the text. Her approach to literature circles is that there are many groups that are working at one time, while there is teacher rotation around the room to take notes. In using a simple checklist or chart, the teachers are quickly and efficiently able to take notes of their observations. Literature Circles 9 The importance of questions and how they are used within the literature circles are addressed in Lloyd (2004) as well as Berne and Clark (2008). Benefits of Literature Circles The benefits of literature circles range from a number of different ideas but the main focus of literature circles is reading comprehension. (Berne and Clark 2008) Along with reading comprehension, Greef (2002) literature circles can also bring students together and this shows how they are able to work in a community. Berne and Clark (2008) have conducted research that shows the reading comprehension strategies that students gain from one another while participating in literature circles. Berne and Clark (2008) also mention the increasing range of text difficulty that will be accomplished by using literature circles within the classroom.
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