Reader’s CircleAidan Chambers (1994)

Readers’ Circle involves each group of students selecting a text to read. The students individually read an agreed part of the text and come together to explore their understanding and interpretations of the text.

Choose a text together initial discussion should focus on the cover,

the author and blurb as you lead the group to make predictions on content.

After beginning the reading in their own time the group will come together on a weekly basis with the teacher to discuss responses to the text.

Keeping notes about their likes, dislikes, patterns and puzzles will assist them to participate in the discussion.

Model this procedure to the whole class first using a picture book.

Possibly use one group as a demo group in a fishbowl technique to model the discussion.

Teacher leads/facilitates the discussion beginning with the 4 basic questions- likes, dislikes, patterns and puzzles

These questions are only the beginning of the discussion, a catalyst to lead to the general and special questions. (see extract from “Tell Me”)

Bring the readers back to the text to ‘back up’ their ideas and opinions

Now and then, sum up the discussion and ideas.

Weekly ‘journal’ entries Writing about the main question from the

discussion in a response format Decide on a way to ‘share’ the book with

other groups (poster, play, book ‘trailer’) (Check out one student’s response in

the form of a ‘trailer’ on “The Canterville Ghost” at the end of this slide presentation)

Follow up with related texts.

The teacher needs to take anecdotal evidence of the discussion and use this against a criteria to measure and track students comprehension and reading skills.

It is recommended that the ‘Reading Texts’ and ‘Comprehension’ skills listed in the K-6 Literacy continuum is used to create a rubric or checklist for this purpose.

This strategy is best suited to fiction texts The teacher needs to have read the text

before the students and be prepared with ideas and questions for each discussion session

Be aware of the implications of having ALL the class engaging in Readers Circle.

the students taking responsibility to read independently between sessions

the development of strategies for making meaning

the development of understanding that there are different interpretations of the same text

the involvement of students in deeply reading a variety of text types.