The Social Construction of Literary Understanding in a 3rd Grade Classroom During Interactive Read-Alouds

Read-alouds are a commonly used tool in elementary classrooms. Teachers read aloud for a variety of purposes, including helping students to better understand a topic, promoting students’ enjoyment of reading, examining an author’s craft, and developing students’ literary understanding. There are two main types of read-alouds that are used in classrooms: traditional read-alouds and interactive read-alouds. Traditional read-alouds include a text being read by the teacher to the class with little student participation during the reading, but an in-depth, or grand conversation about the book at the end of the reading (Eeds & Wells, 1989). The second type of read-aloud, an interactive read-aloud, is different in that the students and teacher converse during the read-aloud, and the students are encouraged to make comments and discuss the text during the reading (Barrentine, 1996). An interactive read-aloud includes the teacher encouraging “the children to interact verbally with the text, peers, and the teacher during book reading” as well as the teacher asking “questions throughout the reading that enhance meaning construction” (Barrentine, 1996). Interactive read-alouds are useful because they help students vocalize and discuss their questions and thoughts while the book is being read-aloud, instead of having to wait and add their comments at the end of the reading (Barrentine, 1994; Fisher, Flood, Lapp, and Frey, 2004). These interactions during read-alouds have been shown to help develop students’ literary understanding and meaning making or comprehension (Sipe 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2008). Read-alouds can be conducted simply to increase a love of reading, but they are also used during writing instruction in order to provide students with an example of a mentor text. Students can then create their own work using methods and ideas from the mentor text that has been read aloud