K-6 students learn more about literature if they personally respond to literature using oral and written language. When presenting literature, consider these questions as a way to engage your students in the reading process: What they are thinking? Have they have had similar experiences? What are they picturing in their minds? What feelings do they have about the characters? What questions do they have about the story?
On a general level, to develop student interest in reading and literature, you must utilize techniques and strategies that actively engage your students. When you allow your students to react to and reflect upon their reading, you encourage their intellectual growth and their active involvement in linking their own ideas to those posed by the author, teacher, or other students.
Objective
This section will familiarize you with strategies that encourage a variety of student responses to literature. How do readers respond to literature? How can you encourage these responses to literature? You will find the answers to these questions in this section.
Teacher Checklist
Complete the sample teacher checklist, which is designed to make you think about the ways you promote responses to literature in your classroom. Click Sample Teacher Checklist to Support Reading, print a check list, and complete.
Sample Teacher Checklist to Support Reading
- Do I model and share reading strategies, as well as taking a personal pleasure in reading?
- __ read to students
- __ encourage and model active reading
- __ teach and model a variety of comprehension strategies that readers
use before, during, and after interacting with texts
- __ employ and model a variety of strategies to help students respond
to texts
- __ help students extend their initial understanding and interpretations
- Do
I use mini-lessons to help students review or acquire a reading skill
or strategy or learn a specific language concept in the context of
their reading?
- __ analyze what individuals and groups of students need to know and
build on what they already know
- __ provide direct instruction by demonstrating and modeling a reading
strategy
- __ provide short but focused direct instruction about a language concept,
convention, format, or issue
- Do I provide opportunities for students to read and discuss a variety of genres from various cultures or historical periods?
- __ use novels,
poems, short stories, essays, editorials, biographies, information
articles, picture books, and other genres
- __ include different voices, such as male or female, and perspectives,
such as multicultural
- __ include traditional and contemporary voices and perspectives
- Do I encourage students to take risks and to offer unique responses to literature supported by their experiences and evidence in texts?
- __
help students to trust and build on their initial and personal responses
- __ encourage students to talk about their reading
- __ give students opportunities to clarify and extend their thinking
about what they read
- __ encourage students to make connections to the broader issues and
world around them
- __ model the use of a variety of types of evidential support from text
- Do I provide opportunities for students to reflect, discuss, and think critically about their reading?
- __ encourage students to share
their first impressions and understanding, and then examine those impressions
- __ help students explore motivations, implications, and causes and
effects
- __ help students examine the literary devices, techniques, and language
employed
- __ help students understand that each text reflects a particular viewpoint and set of values that is shaped by its personal, social, cultural, and historical context
- Do I help students develop their reading skills and strategies within meaningful contexts rather than in isolation?
- __
use texts that are related to the unit or topic being discussed
- __ have students compare texts
- __ provide instruction at the time of need
- __ build or model problem-solving strategies using all the cueing systems
- Do I encourage students to select and read independently from a variety of resources?
- __ provide opportunities for students to choose
reading selection or activity
- __ balance guided reading experiences with independent experiences
- __ demonstrate interest in students' personal reading activities outside of school
- Do I involve students in assessing reading practices and behaviors?
- __ identify students' strengths and needs before, during,
and after reading
- __ use checklists, rubrics, conferences, and anecdotal notes
- __ involve students in developing appropriate criteria
