Making reading personally meaningful through children's literature helps them learn to read (King, 1989). He asserts that while reading to children, it is important to let them interpret books with their personal experience and to share the meaning with others because their personal response to literature is a beneficial way to develop their literacy. As Wells (1990) indicates, children and young adults develop literacy (reading, writing, thinking) by having real literacy experiences and getting support from more-experienced individuals, who may be adults or peers. Routman (1988) asserts that when children read books, they develop their own literacy by understanding the meaning of the stories instead of learning isolated letters and words
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This is what Pearson (1985) called the gradual release of responsibility. If students are unable to achieve independence, the teacher brings back the support system to help students experience success until they are able to achieve independence (Cooper, 1993). Examples of scaffolded instruction are: selections being organized in a theme; providing a graphic organizer, providing enough amount of prior knowledge activation and discussing the major parts of a text before reading; supplying a beginning sentence or idea as a start for writing; and reading aloud with students as they are reading (Graves and Fitzgerald, …show more content…
Researchers have found that giving students choices in what they are doing leads to more effective learning (Johnston & Allington, 1991). Giving students options to choose what they read, how they read and how they respond to a piece of literature, we allow them to actively construct their own meaning (Martinez and Roser, 1991) Independent reading and writing is one feature that is very essential to literature-based reading programs, because in order for students to become expert readers and writers, they must have time to practice and apply what they are learning - reading and writing. Therefore, it is essential that the literacy-centered classroom provide time for students to read independently in self-selected books and to engage in self-initiated writing. Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988) found that the amount of time students spent in independent reading was the best predictor of reading achievement and also the best predictor of the amount of gain in reading achievement made by students between second and fifth
This is what Pearson (1985) called the gradual release of responsibility. If students are unable to achieve independence, the teacher brings back the support system to help students experience success until they are able to achieve independence (Cooper, 1993). Examples of scaffolded instruction are: selections being organized in a theme; providing a graphic organizer, providing enough amount of prior knowledge activation and discussing the major parts of a text before reading; supplying a beginning sentence or idea as a start for writing; and reading aloud with students as they are reading (Graves and Fitzgerald, …show more content…
Researchers have found that giving students choices in what they are doing leads to more effective learning (Johnston & Allington, 1991). Giving students options to choose what they read, how they read and how they respond to a piece of literature, we allow them to actively construct their own meaning (Martinez and Roser, 1991) Independent reading and writing is one feature that is very essential to literature-based reading programs, because in order for students to become expert readers and writers, they must have time to practice and apply what they are learning - reading and writing. Therefore, it is essential that the literacy-centered classroom provide time for students to read independently in self-selected books and to engage in self-initiated writing. Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988) found that the amount of time students spent in independent reading was the best predictor of reading achievement and also the best predictor of the amount of gain in reading achievement made by students between second and fifth