Reading+Aloud+to+Students

Jacobs, J. S., Morrison, T. G., & Swinyard, W. R. (2002). Reading aloud to students: A national probability study of classroom reading practices of elementary school teachers. //Reading Psychology, 21//(3), 171-193. Retrieved June 21, 2009, from Academic Search Complete.


 * Quotes || Reaction ||
 * 1. "Our questions in this study were similar to those asked by previous researchers: (a) who reads to students in classrooms, and (b) how often do they read to children?" (p. 173)

2. "We decided to gather information about oral reading by teachers in their classrooms by having teachers report their frequency of reading to their students. Specifically, we asked teachers to report what reading they had done in their classrooms during the 10 days they had taught previous to answering our questions." (p. 173)

 3. "Teachers in the primary grades read more frequently to their students than teachers in the intermediate grades." (p. 184)

4. "Teachers in primary grades read picture books much more frequently than children's novels. After second grade, picture book reading remained below reading of children's novels in frequency of occurrence through sixth grade. Conversely, reading of children's novels was less common among primary-grade teachers and the most frequent type of text read among primary-grade teachers and the most frequent type of text read among intermediate-grade teachers." (p. 186-187)  5. "Although many picture books are perhaps better suited for older rather than younger children, it appears from this study that intermediate-grade students may not be exposed to many of them, especially in grades five and six." (p. 187)   6. "A consistent finding in this study was that few teachers, at the primary or intermediate grade levels, read or introduced informational books to their students. Informational books were used by teachers an average of only 3 of their last 10 days of teaching, while picture books were used in almost 6 of 10 days and children's novels were used in almost 5 of 10 days." (p. 187)

7. "In this study, we found that the primary-grade teachers introduced students to books and recommended specific titles more often than the intermediate-grade teachers." (p. 188-189)

8. "Although book sharing is more common in the early grades than in the upper grades, the practice is not as common at any grade level as we had expected. Perhaps teachers are not familiar with children's books, especially newer titles, and do not feel comfortable in recommending books." (p. 189) || 2. The researchers gathered more data by asking teachers to include all read-alouds from the previous ten days rather than simply the previous day.

4. and 5. This may be due to lack of familiarity with children's literature as well.

6. This is consistent with other articles I have found.

7. and 8. I am surprised that primary teachers share books more often than intermediate teachers. The authors' conclusion for this is reasonable. ||  Tags: read-aloud, research, elementary school, choosing material, frequency