Using Literature Circles to Increase Reading Comprehension in Third Grade Elementary Students.

Reading comprehension strategies are important skills for a child to learn. Good strategies support struggling students to be more successful in all subjects at school as reading is the basis for subsequent mastery of most subjects (Bender & Larkin, 2003). This action research project examined the use of literature circles in a third grade class. The research examined student performance on reading comprehension assessments before and after the use of literature circles. Other evidence of student learning and engagement with reading were examined. This paper presents the findings of this research and provides third grade teachers with literature circles activities to support the development of reading comprehension in their students. This research found that through the use of literature circles students developed better comprehension skills while increasing social skills that will lead to enriched learning. Literature Circles 5 Chapter One Introduction School has never been easy for me. As an elementary student, I had to put a great deal of effort into my work in order to do well. Specifically, reading comprehension was difficult for me. It took me a long time to finish a book because I had to reread it a number of times if I wanted to understand it, something I continue to do as an adult. While I was lucky that my mother was a teacher and I had her support at home whenever I had trouble, I wished I had better support at school. As I look back, I wish my teachers had taught me effective reading comprehension strategies. Now I am a teacher and I teach third grade in a diverse school district in Northern California. I just finished my first year of teaching and in my class I had students who struggled with reading comprehension. My students needed extra support from their teachers, school district, and community. I wanted to teach my students vital comprehension skills but in my first year of teaching I was unsure of how to accomplish this. I recognized that some of my students did not have the kind of support system at home that I had when I was growing up. I felt responsible for giving them the tools they needed so that they could be successful. A wide spread goal of education in elementary grades is to build reading comprehension for all students (Guthrie, Wigfield, Barbosa, Perencevich, Taboada, Davis, Scafiddi & Tonks, 2004). Reading comprehension becomes more important by the time students reach third grade. If students do not acquire reading comprehension skills by this time, their academic progress will be limited throughout their school career (Guthrie, et al., 2004). As many educators agree, by the end of third grade instead of Literature Circles 6 learning to read, students are reading to learn. When we give students something to read and ask them questions about it, we aren’t teaching them to comprehend; we are checking to see if they did comprehend. When we “drill” them on reading, we don’t make the process of understanding explicit. We do not provide the opportunity to “see” what comprehension looks like as we read (Pollack Day, Lee Spiegal, McLellan &, Brown, 2002). Comprehension is the ability to understand and grasp the meaning of something. It is also the reason for reading. Teaching comprehension is important so that the reader can derive more meaning from a text. Comprehension improves through extensive reading. Researchers conclude that comprehension could improve more if all readers were taught to use comprehension strategies that good readers use (Block, Gambrell & Pressley, 2002). Moreover, students are more likely to be actively engaged with text they understand. It has been suggested that students’ amount of engaged reading correlates with achievement in reading comprehension (Guthrie, et al., 2004). As adults, and lifelong learners, we choose what we want to read. Through trial and error we find material with which we connect. We are able figure out what type of books we like and what we don’t. In school this is not happening. The majority of reading material is provided in a districtadopted curriculum or selected by the teacher. Reading in the classroom rarely includes open-ended, reader-to-reader talk. Writing comes into play not as a tool for thinking but as a way of policing homework or testing recall. In short, kids in school hardly ever own reading the way grown-up readers do (Daniels & Steineke, 2004). Literature Circles 7 Children need to understand and remember what they read (Daniels & Steineke, 2004). Teachers can plan classroom activities that teach reading comprehension strategies and allow students to practice them. Reading strategies include: visualizing, connecting, questioning, inferring, evaluating, analyzing, recalling, and self-monitoring these are vital to solid comprehension and lively conversation (Daniels & Steineke, 2004). It is also important to offer reading material students find enjoyable. Students need to connect personally to the story because this will lead to better discussions. Literature circles were chosen for this research because they teach students reading comprehension strategies and engage students through discussions. Literature circles are a form of book group that engage students by allowing them to respond to the text in a variety of ways and practice using reading comprehension strategies. In literature circles the teacher chooses about four books that will interest students. Out of the four books the students choose which book they would like to read. Students are organized into small groups of four to five children. Students meet daily to read a chapter from their book and each student is given a role for the day. Roles are described in literature review section of this paper. The purpose for assigning students a role is to have each student engaged in a conversation about the chapter read. Students are able to discuss what they read in a social environment. I decided that this was a strategy I would like to try with my own students to determine whether or not it helps them build reading comprehension. Statement of Problem Teachers often complain that students do not remember what they read and are not engaged with their text (Oczkus, 2003). Teachers often have students read a story or Literature Circles 8 book within a timeframe, lead short classroom discussions, provide recall worksheets, and then expect students to pass a quiz at the end of the week. This type of instruction does not help students learn strategies for comprehending what they read. Instead, teachers need to break the task up into its component steps or tasks, and provide kids with specific strategies they can use to get ready, to construct meaning, and to apply what they have read (Daniels, 1994). It’s also important to offer books/stories students find enjoyable. The goal is to get students to connect personally because this will lead to better engagement. Purpose The purpose of this research is to better understand how to implement student run literature circles in a third grade classroom, to examine the effects on student engagement of providing students with reading material based on student interests and reading level and to assess whether or not literature circles increase student reading comprehension. Assumptions This study is based on the following assumptions: by working in literature circles, students will develop better comprehension; by increasing reading comprehension, students will develop self-esteem, which will allow them to be more successful throughout their school careers, and give them opportunities for a better future. Another assumption is that by providing teachers with a simple framework, assessments, and defined roles for students they will be able to use literature circles effectively in their classrooms. Literature Circles 9