Using Shared Reading to Explore Text Complexity

Dr. Barbara Honchell University of North Carolina

Wilmington

Defining Shared Reading

Shared Reading is a collaborative literacy learning activity based on the research of Don Holdaway (1979). Shared reading in school emulates and builds from the student’s experiences with other kinds of reading. The students in a group “share” the reading of the story with the teacher by using enlarged text (Parkes, 2000).

More about Shared Reading

In Shared Reading the text is enlarged using a big book, chart, or projected text so the text is visible to the students at all times.

The text is selected to meet the needs of the students,

enabling them to actively participate in the reading of the text.

And more

The teacher reads with the students, who interact with the text throughout the shared reading and respond to the teacher’s comments and questions.

The teacher reads and stops at planned instructional points in the text to model his thinking and/or discuss a reading skill or strategy.

Shared Reading with all ages

Shared Reading is often thought of as a teaching method for younger students but can be used effectively across grade levels.

It is the text, the teaching

purpose, and the social

nature of the learning that

matters NOT the age of

the student.

General design for a Shared Reading lesson

Generally begins with rereading of something familiar

Then a new text is introduced or another reading is revisited for in-depth rereading and discussion

Finally there is an explicit mini-lesson either preplanned based on previous in-depth reading or as a result of that day’s lesson

A brief example

Video Clip from Sharon Taberski

Understanding text complexity during Shared Reading

Text can be complex in three ways:

Graphophonically Complex Letters, letter combinations, syllables

Syntactically Complex Sentence & text structure

Semantically Complex Passage meaning & vocabulary

Teaching for complexity of letters and sounds in Shared Reading

Prefixes, suffixes, roots Multi-syllable words Abbreviations Common letter clusters Contractions Silent letters

Teaching for complexity of sentence or text structure in Shared Reading

Punctuation “—”, :, …

Parts of text Glossary, index,

table of contents Charts and graphs Book language

Teaching for complexity of passage meaning in Shared Reading

Building schema Supporting purposeful and active

engagement Connecting previous reading to new Creating visual images Thinking deeply Checking for understanding Determining importance of information

Examples of a Shared Reading lessons for each kind of complexity

Weather poster – phonological complexity

Pinduli and Island of the Blue Dolphins - syntactic complexity

Orville and Wilbur Wright – semantic complexity

Shared Reading is a tool not an answer

Understanding and working with text complexity needs to be taught, modeled, and explored through gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the students. We cannot expect our students to work independently with many examples of complex text without teaching them how to do so!

Let’s Explore Text!