Chapter 5 Creatively engaging readers in the later primary years

PRINCIPLES

Creative teachers of reading who teach to promote children’s engagement with and response to texts, and who seek to build reading fluency at this age use pedagogical practices underpinned by a number of principles. These include:

■ valuing reading and reflection;

■ knowing that understanding (comprehending) texts is critical to engagement, enjoyment and learning;
■ providing potent and engaging texts;
■ recognising the importance of talk around and in response to texts;
■ building a reading culture within the classroom (including reading aloud to children);
■ encouraging independent reading and personal choice (including texts from children’s twenty-first century culture);
■ offering clear modelling through their own reading experiences, responses and expertise;
■ giving supportive feedback and suggestions for further development.

Various factors have been identified as important in teaching reading. Based on an extensive research review, Pressley (quoted in Harrison, 2002: 16) listed those factors he regarded as ‘research proven’ in the teaching of reading. Removing the use of decoding skills from his list as being largely used in the early reading stages, the list contains the following: encourage extensive reading; explicit work on sight vocabulary; teach the use of context cues and monitoring meaning; teach vocabulary; encourage readers to ask their own ‘Why?’ questions of a text; teach self-regulated comprehension strategies (for example, activating prior knowledge, visualisation, summarising); encourage reciprocal teaching (teacher modelling of strategies and scaffolding for independence); and encourage transactional strategies (an approach based on readers exploring texts with their peers and their teacher).

The teaching approaches of reciprocal teaching and exploring texts with peers and teachers that Pressley (ibid.) identifies are central to the collaborative, reflective and supportive ethos found in creative and playful classrooms. However, the specific teaching strategies he mentions, such as teaching comprehension strategies and vocabulary, need to be embedded and contextualised in the extensive reading of exciting and affecting texts (Cremin et al., 2014). This is because becoming a fluent reader does not just mean getter quicker and more accurate at automatic word recognition and recognising an increasing number of words. While fluent reading – being ‘the ability to read with comprehension, accuracy, speed and appropriate expression (prosody)’ (Johns and Berglund, 2006: 3) – involves using cognitive skills, becoming an engaged and motivated fluent reader means much more than this.

Children who are not engaged and motivated to read do not benefit from reading teaching (Wigfield et al., 2004; Krashen, 2011). Becoming an engaged and motivated reader has social, emotional and cultural dimensions and involves the reader in seeing a purpose for reading. This is supported by children positioning themselves as a reader within a social, collaborative community with shared practices and expectations. It also involves readers in responding to the feeling and emotions in texts. Sensitive and creative teachers of reading seek to create a community of readers within their classrooms, providing a context in which children’s diverse cultural capital and home literacies are acknowledged and creativity, speculation, experimentation, play, risk taking and reflection on reading are all encouraged.