Through the Window

This morning, I walked past a classroom of older students, and heard a teacher’s best dramatic voice. As I peered through the window, I noticed a class of children, eyes fixed on the adult at the front of the room with a novel in her hand. Every-so-often, the teacher would stop to make eye-contact with her class and explain a new word, or wonder aloud about the motivation of a character, and then she would return to the pages of the book. At the conclusion of the chapter, she closed the book, and the students eagerly expressed their opinions and ideas about what had just been read.  

At first glance, it looks like a group of students simply listening to a story. However, this novel has been chosen very carefully, as it deals with concepts that are key to the class’s inquiry unit. Our teachers understand that reading aloud to students helps them to learn how to use language to make sense of the world, and improves vocabulary, and comprehension. It leads to amazing discussions and conversations that employ higher-level thinking. Students have an opportunity to hear a proficient reader model fluency and expression. “Reading aloud to students both slows down and intensifies the classroom experience. In a world of sound bites and half-formed ideas expressed quickly in electronic formats, students benefit from hearing complete ideas, expressed with originality and attention, such as one finds in literary language.” (Varias, 2018). Thomas Sticht (1984) demonstrated that a child's reading ability doesn't catch up to their listening ability until around Year 8, which is what makes the read aloud a perfect opportunity to expose students to texts they can't yet read for themselves. Finally, research has shown that teachers who read aloud really do motivate students to read.

Our school places a high value on the resources we have in our library and classrooms to promote good literacy practices. And we very much appreciate the wonderful work our Community Council does to support literacy achievement at St Matthew’s through their fundraising. Last week’s Colour Run (Oh! What fun!) is an example of such efforts. 

Yes - through the window, you thought you saw a group of students listening to a story, but it really was so much more than that.