Re: What is your opinion of whole group novels?
Posted by: dc on 9/22/09
Don't have any research to help you, but if you use it
as "shared reading", then it seems like it would fall under
balanced literacy which includes modeled reading, guided
reading, shared reading, and independent reading. If you
ONLY used whole group novels and none of the other
components, then I think that it might not be a good idea.
Whole group novels allow kids to access chapter books (for my
transitional 3rd graders), when they might not be able to
otherwise. It allows me to model my thinking while they are
actually viewing the text. It allows me to expose children
to vocabulary higher than their independent reading level.
It allows me to tie in curriculum from science and social
studies units to narratives. Those are just my opinions, but
again, I wouldn't use whole group novel reading to the
exclusion of those other forms of reading. Sorry I can't
help you with research.
