Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal October 2008 Volume 6(5)

Books and reading: book groups

Reading is aloud

Lillian Downie from Brechin High School in Angus describes how a successful class book group works.

The project was set up as a collaboration between the English Department and the School Library. Pupils were divided into groups of four and brought to the library during a reading period, and given the choice of books from a selection that had been used previously for the Angus Book Award.

The pupils were asked to read the books and during their library time they take it in turns to each read a page, a paragraph or chapter aloud. They were also given homework which entailed reading up to an agreed page. In this, the pupils set their own target, which could be to the end of the chapter or further. Pupils were encouraged to support each other and the majority of groups were mixed ability which was beneficial for everyone. Low ability were helped, middle ability were encouraged and higher ability were involved with other pupils and shared their knowledge.

The pupils seemed to engage well with the idea and were keen to get on with the reading. At times, the library staff and the teacher would join a group if they were free to do so. The groups were small enough in number to make it easy for the adult to know all the names and randomly ask someone to start reading. This was a good way of keeping the pupils focused on the page and reading along with the others in the group.
Amy Anderson, the teacher of English who came up with the idea, also identified extension tasks for the pupils to add to their reading skills. As they were reading, one pupil from each group would be looking at plot, character, setting and language. This was also seen as a good way of introducing the pupils to new authors and different genres, something they may not have tried on their own.

The pupils were asked to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for their classmates about the book that they had read. This was peer and teacher assessed: pupils judged presentations on content and success criteria for group talk.

For some pupils, this was the first longer-length novel that they had read from start to finish. The project was such a success that it is being extended to other year groups.

Information Scotland Vol. 6(5) October 2008

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.