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Theory and Literature Review |
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...teachers with different storybook reading styles may move their students along different paths in literacy. (Martinez & Teale, 1993) Literature Review Over the past 15 years, research that has focused upon reading aloud to young children has primarily taken place within the home environment. Parental interactions, reading practices and frequency of reading has been the focus. Few studies have explored the effects of reading aloud in the classroom. Those that have been documented, have shown a large range of reading approaches used by teachers. Researchers have termed several of these approaches as performance oriented, didactic interactive, dialogic, to name just a few. Such differences in reading styles suggest that children's experiences with storybooks may differ from one teacher to another. Thus the question, Is one approach more beneficial to literacy development than another? Can teacher led interactive discussions enhance a child's literacy experience? Or is direct reading of text just as beneficial?
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Theory Over the past 80 years, a variety of theories about the way children learn to read and how to teach them has undergone many shifts in perspectives. At the beginning of the 20th century, educators believed that children needed to pass through a series of stages before they could receive reading instruction. This maturational philosophy supported the theory of reading readiness. New theories emerged in the 60's through the 80's and viewing children in a new light, as active literacy learners who change and develop over time. There emerged an understanding that many children come to school with a great deal of experience with reading and writing and were able to apply this knowledge to reading and writing in a meaningful way. Around the same time, the social constructivist theory of literacy learning emerged with the philosophy that language and literacy are cultural tools and that language leads development. These educators believe that literacy learning is a social process and that children work to make meaning out of print. . The critical theory of development, another new viewpoint holds the perspective that children come to school with different cultural backgrounds. These differences create gaps between home and school language. Teachers who support this theory realize these differences and work towards closing the gap and eliminating the negative effects created by these differences. This thesis incorporates several of these theories. Children emerge into reading after significant exposure to quality literacy experiences. Assisting children in expanding upon their background knowledge through careful exposure to literature, vocabulary, linguistic concepts and story structure elements are felt to be key factors in emergent literacy. In addition, shared reading has the potential to foster social construction of meaning within the classroom and lays the foundations for critical thinking through teacher as well as student lead discussions. Various styles of reading have been documented and measured but not found to be of a particular significance in enhancing these skill areas. This research is an attempt to identify whether the interactive reading approach is a superior and favored approach to reading to preschoolers that positively fosters literacy growth.
Links to Power Point Presentation Definition of Critical Literacy
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