THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE ROUND

ROBIN READING BOX

Commonplace Book Entry #3 Annie Tran—EDUC 513A – Professor Park

DEFINING ROUND ROBIN READING:

According to the research done by Ash, Kuhn, and Walpole in their article, “Analyzing ‘Inconsistencies’

in Practice: Teachers’ Continued Use of Round Robin Reading,” Round Robin Reading is an overused

method of reading in the classroom where the teacher calls on students to read orally by taking

turns.

ROUND ROBIN READING AND ITS NICKNAMES:

-Popcorn Reading: students read a passage and are encouraged to “pick” on another student to continue

reading-Combat Reading: students read a passage and are

encouraged to catch other students who are off-task to read

-Popsicle Reading: teacher utilizes equity sticks to call on students to read when their name is drawn from the

popsicle stick can-Round Robin Reading: students read in a

predetermined order (i.e. seating chart and going table to table all around the room)

What are the pros and cons of RRR?

ARGUMENTS FOR RRR:It is still unclear why teachers utilize this

practice when there is research that acknowledges its damaging affects on students, but some possibilities may include the following:-Easy strategy to fall back on-Convenient for teacher to sit back and watch students do the work and regulating who reads next-Comfortable with the practice (the teacher may have been accustomed to this growing up in the classroom and is unaware of its detrimental effects on students)

ARGUMENTS AGAINST RRR:Although some teachers acknowledge

that they are uncomfortable with RRR, the practice still persists with negative effects such as: -Interruptive to the nature of reading-Turn-taking leads to poor models of reading-Damages social and emotional growth -Does not develop independence in word decoding

WHAT CAN BE DONE?*Research can be further exposed to teachers and raising awareness of the issue can promote better reading practices in the classroom.

*Trainings and professional development workshops provide a great opportunity for teachers to learn about new reading strategies rather than resorting to the old RRR strategies that prove detrimental to students.

What are alternative reading strategies to use in the classroom?

*Independent Reading

*Shared Reading

*Jigsaw Reading

*Reciprocal Reading

*Echo Reading

*Choral Reading

INDEPENDENT READING:

Students read independently and are assigned clear stopping and starting points.-Students understand that there is a purpose for reading (“While you read, see if you can figure out why . . .”)-Plethora of Post-Reading Activities to try (such as reader response journals, dialectical journals, etc.)-Activities to connect to reading process (higher level questioning)-Faster readers can re-read for closer reading while slower readers have the time to absorb material.

SHARED READING:

Teacher reads aloud to model fluency and pronunciation.-Students follow along closely and respond when teacher stops at preselected passages to clarify the meaning behind the text.-Students respond to a good model of reading.

ECHO READING:

The teacher reads a part of the text with great modeling and students follow the lead.-Teacher reads a selected passage of the text, students are then asked to read that same portion of text in just the same way. -This can be done as frequently as needed throughout the text.

CHORAL READING:

The teacher has the decision to split the class into halves or separate groups.-More than one student at a time reads. (This allows the students to blend their voices into one without putting anyone on the spot.)-The point is to have many voices reading at once as the teacher directs which passage to read. Students can repeat sections to build fluency.

JIGSAW READING:

Students attack chunks of the reading with a purpose to teach others about their section of the text.- Teacher assign sections of reading, students are split into different groups than they are normally paired with varied skills -Sections of texts to read and assigned tasks are to-the-point and limited so that they can teach the other groups the content of their assigned section.-Each group becomes the expert on their section of the text.-This strategy is great for large pieces of text with a faster approach to reading.

RECIPROCAL READING:

Teacher directs the reading at first but gradually releases responsibility of learning onto the student. -Good readers are visible to the class and the purpose is to have these students become good reading models for their peers. Students internalize that they need to do these steps with everything they read: *Predict*Read *Question/ Clarify points of uncertainty*Summarize