Shared Reading
Diane Snowball, Nov. 2000
In the 1960's Don Holdaway was part of a study group in New Zealand that set out to find solutions to literacy problems in schools, including problems that were arising in multicultural classrooms. The programs, techniques, and styles of teaching which arose came to be loosely bound together under the term sharedbook-experience and later called shared reading. Conclusions about the effectiveness of shared reading arose from a number of studies conducted between 1969 and 1974 in Auckland. These were followed up by Warwick Elley in many countries around the world, finding that shared reading was much more effective in teaching students to read than many other practices were. Don Holdaway was also asked to work in schools in the Boston area in the 1980's and the studies there also proved the effectiveness of shared reading in teaching children to read.
Over the years the exact nature of shared reading, as studied by Don Holdaway and others, has not been fully understood and a number of practices have been taken up which are not really shared reading even though they have been given that name. These other practices may be useful in their own right, but they are not based on the research led by Don. In this article I will try to reinforce what the initial term shared reading means and identify some other practices that are useful and others that are misleading when associated with shared reading. In some situations Holdaway is concerned that "the technical aspects of the practices were often neglected or applied in a shallow and wasteful manner, with an overemphasis on children simply enjoying themselves". (Holdaway, 2000).
Research about shared reading
The "researched" shared reading emulates and builds from children's experiences with bedtime stories, so we need to remind ourselves of the features in those situations, as described by Holdaway (1979, pp. 38-40):
· for the parents who engage in it, reading books to their youngsters provides deep satisfaction and pleasure;
· the stories themselves are enriching and deeply satisfying;
· there is a supportive and emulative adult who answers questions directly and readily without interfering with what the child is trying to do;
· although the adults are usually willing to explain meanings and answer questions, they are seldom very worried about making certain that their
· orientation to book language develops in an environment of rich exposure beyond immediate needs;
· the infant is involved in the selection of those books which will deeply preoccupy him: the request to 'read it again' arises from a natural and important developmental demand;
· in his own play at 'being a reader' the infant quickly avails himself of the opportunity to practice and experiment with a selection from the material made available through repeated readings.
Holdaway (1979, p. 40) elaborates on this point:
By far the most surprising and significant aspect of pre-school book-experience, however, is the independent activity of these very young children with their favorite books. Almost as soon as the infant becomes familiarized with particular books through repeated readings, he begins to play with them in reading-like ways …… Almost unintelligible at first, this reading-like play rapidly becomes picture stimulated, page-matched, and story-complete. The time spent each day in these spontaneous attempts to retrieve pleasurable book experiences is often greatly in excess of the time spent in listening to books being read by the adults being emulated.
And Holdaway (1979, p. 61) comments on this again:
The most important discovery we made was that the much lauded bedtime story situation is only half the picture, practice of reading-like behavior and writing-like behavior completes the picture …… It is independent behavior which does not depend on an audience of any kind and is therefore self-regulated, self-corrected, and self-sustaining …… The bedtime story situation should not be separated from the independent productive behavior which it generates.
[Question: What is the implication of this for the classroom situation?]
Holdaway's later thoughts:
When questioned in October, 2000 about his thoughts on shared reading in today's classrooms, Holdaway stated that he was currently trying to undo the terrible misunderstandings and corruptions of shared reading. He shared the following thoughts:
· It embodies the spirit and form of the bedtime story with the repetition on request of favorite text.
· In this situation it sets up ideal opportunities for companionable demonstration of all aspects of skilled and joyful reading by the teacher and active participation by the children.
· It utilizes all the delights of rhythmic language, patterned structure, rhyme and rhythm in story, poem, and song.
· It provides the conditions for intimate visual contact with the details of print by every child through the use of enlarged print with careful pointing and masking at the earliest stages. In the early stages it makes clear that the message comes from the print in a highly regular left to right direction.
· In this setting the eyes of every child should be on the precise print detail at the very moment the voice utters the sounds of the words.
· It increases the quantity of text passing through the language system of each child such that many texts are enjoyed or repeated every day through a combination of shared, individual and other forms of reading and writing.
· Written forms of the language being unfamiliar to most very young children, a primary aim is to provide experience of written dialect passing through the oral language system of each child to the point of personal mastery.
· It provides opportunities for children to practice the emulative model of the teacher through role-play, i.e, from time to time different children will take the part of the teacher.
Properly understood, Shared Book Experience displays a number of techniques that together form a network of practices each of which are critical in achieving the learning objectives. From learning theory, as outlined in our Beliefs and Practices, come:
· an emphasis on positive reinforcement
· the teacher attempts to provide a level of challenge that induces a leap of perception by children as they participate - what Vygotsky called 'the zone of proximal development'
· the opportunity for lively demonstration by the teacher
· a stress on active participation including unison or choral involvement
· a high level of engagement and aesthetic excitement in text
· much enjoyable repetition
· correction by the teacher is avoided in the interests of inducing self correction by the children
· alphabet names are used to identify or talk about letters and the usual technical vocabulary is used for all aspects of print, e.g. comma, full-stop, syllable, paragraph, etc.
· the teacher encourages prediction of both vocabulary and outcomes
The Shared Reading Experience In The Classroom
The at-home or bedtime reading situation is an intimate, relaxed experience with the focus being on enjoyment and meaning. Hence the need to gather children around in a classroom, to create a corporate learning setting that is non-competitive, using enlarged text that is clearly seen by everyone. The objectives of shared-book experience cannot be achieved without daily use of enlarged print.
(Holdaway, 1979, p. 129).
Note that it is also implied in the above statements and findings that children have the opportunity to comment and question during the reading. In some classrooms such behavior is not encouraged and the questions often come from the teachers at the end of the reading rather than from children during the reading. Although it is more difficult to accept interruptions from a class of children than from an individual, there should at least be a sensible balance between children being quiet and children interrupting too often. Children who have not experienced being read to at home would also benefit from additional small group shared reading, or from experiences where they are read to frequently by an adult or older child who becomes very familiar with the child's interests and favorites and continually has those available for selection.
It is obvious that the range of material being used for "bedtime reading" is readily accessible to the child. This means that material being used for shared reading in a classroom should be kept in the classroom for a period of time and in a location where children can easily find it for their own independent reading. Individual copies of the most popular books, poems, and songs also need to be available for children to become readers who are self-regulated and self-sustaining.
[Question: How does this compare with common classroom practice?]
The following description of shared reading in Foundations of Literacy
(Holdaway, 1979) raises some interesting issues that are worth discussing and comparing with current practice in schools:
Description of a Kindergarten Class
- At the beginning of a kindergarten year Holdaway talks about selecting about 20 books (known favorites with that age group) for the first two weeks to read to and with children, intending that 10-12 will become real favorites. 3- 4 of these are published big books or have been rewritten by the teacher as big books which children can help to illustrate. Enjoyable poems and songs are also written on charts. All of these will have at least some element that will draw the children into prediction and participation perhaps even during the first reading or singing.
- During those 2 weeks at least one new poem or song and a story are introduced nearly every day and favorites are reread, dramatized, etc., but not the same ones every day. If a title was not a big book but now becomes one of the class favorites, it is made into an enlarged version for further study. Copies of favorite poems, songs, chants are given to the children. Children have opportunities to spend time with these familiar books, poems, and songs during the day. Children have some time every day for writing. The class is also making their own books from personal experiences and from innovation on other texts.
- This pattern continues (after 3 months they have read 60 such books to and with the children, 20 poems, 10 songs, and some chants), but books may be introduced differently sometimes, e.g. with children predicting more through oral cloze, using structure, meaning, or picture clues. They have begun work on alphabet knowledge, noticing features of words, etc. A routine has been established with material so that there is the Discovery Stage when it introduced, Exploration Stage in rereadings, and Independent Experience and Expression Stage for independent retrieval of the experience in reading and writing. At each stage there are different objectives (see Foundation s of Literacy, pp. 71-72).
Holdaway points out that the difficulty a child experiences in 'reading' favourite books is in direct relationship to the number of repetitions he enjoys before attempting to read independently. So some children are encouraged to attempt the independent reading before others and may be involved in other activities during further rereadings. The less ready children have more repetitions of hearing the text through the use of taped versions of books. They may listen and read-along with a copy of the book and this is a valuable experience for them. But there should also be a flow of new reading material so that none can be processed repetitively to the point of perfect rote memorization. In shared reading children should have just sufficient support from memory to be induced into successful decoding strategies at the verbal level (see Foundations of Literacy, pp.127-128).
[Questions: What does this imply about what sort of material should be used in shared reading? How does the description above compare with the "one book at a time" idea seen in many classrooms?]
The teacher can control this proper level of familiarity very delicately by the number and recency of repetitions to which different groups of children are exposed. An emergent reader may have 5-6 repetitions with no delay between the last modeling and attempted 'reading', but a fluent reader may have no repetitions and perhaps a longer delay between the last modeling and attempted 'reading'
(see Foundations of Literacy, p. 128 for more detail).
To fully appreciate the teaching techniques it is highly recommended that the following material be read:
Holdaway, Don. 1979. Foundations of Literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Chapters 4 and 6. In these chapters Holdaway describes how the use of shared reading begins in a classroom and how it changes over time as teachers learn more and children move to higher grades. This is particularly valuable for teachers who are moving from the use of basal texts as the basis of their reading program to other teaching/learning experiences, and for teachers who think they know what shared reading is but need to find out more.
Parkes, Brenda. 2000. Read it Again! Portland, ME: Stenhouse. Brenda was trained in New Zealand, taught in NZ and Australian classrooms and at Griffith University Qld, and has been a staff developer throughout the US. This book is thoroughly based on Don Holdaway's research and demonstrates how to use fiction and non fiction texts for shared reading in the early grades.
Shared Reading As Described In Other Texts and Incorrect Practices