Cooperative reading

Reading engagement and successful reading are linked and research supports this view, so Cooperative Reading in our classroom focuses on specific processes that facilitate reading engagement and motivation to read.

Engaged readers are motivated to make choices about what they read, how they read and what they take from the reading.

Engaged readers:

- are motivated to read by personal goals
- use a range of effective reading strategies to understand what they read
- are knowledgeable in the way they built new understanding from text
- are socially interactive in their approach to literacy

In our classroom:

- students choose from a range of books
- the teacher explicitly teaches social skills necessary for partner and group discussions and cooperative learning
- students interact around a text
- teacher reads aloud with pauses from time to time to model explicitly what readers do as they read
- students read aloud and use peer support to scaffold reading of difficult texts
- students read exciting and interesting novels, poems, short stories and specifically - blog entries such as Daisy's Designs and Jessica Watson's solo voyage around the world.

We will also read aloud the works of Beatrix Potter, namely Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

Children Learn What They Live

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.

- Dorothy Law Nolte 1972