Promoting Reading with Book Talks
Phase of Development: Early Adolescence/Late Adolescence
(but can be modified for all phases)
Overarching Learning Outcomes
| Overarching Learning Outcomes |
| 1. | Students use language to understand, develop and communicate ideas and information and interact with others. |
| 2. | Students select, use and adapt technologies. |
| 10. | Students participate in creative activity of their own and understand and engage with the artistic, cultural and intellectual work of others. |
| 11. | Students value and implement practices that promote personal growth and well being. |
| 12. | Students are self-motivated and confident in their approach to learning and are able to work individually and collaboratively. |
| 13. | Students recognise that everyone has the right to feel valued and be safe, and in this regard, understand their rights and obligations and behave responsibly. |
English Learning Outcomes
Curriculum Framework
Learning Area Outcomes |
Outcomes and Standards Framework
Strand and Substrand Statements |
Listening
Students listen with purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of situations.
Speaking
Students speak with purpose and effect in a wide range of contexts. |
Speaking & Listening
Students speak and listen with purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of contexts. |
Reading
Students read a wide range of texts with purpose, understanding and critical awareness. |
Understanding Language
Students understand that the way language is used varies according to context.
Attitudes, Values & Beliefs
Students understand that language has an important effect on the ways in which they view themselves and the world in which they live. |
Speaking and Listening and Reading, Contextual Understanding Substrands
Students develop a critical awareness of the ways language varies according to context and how language affects the ways students view themselves and their world. |
Conventions
Students use conventions of Standard Australian English with understanding and critical awareness. |
Speaking & Listening, Conventions Substrand
Students use and interpret the conventions of oral communication with understanding and critical awareness.
Reading, Conventions Substrand
Students interpret the conventions of written texts with understanding and critical awareness. |
Processes & Strategies
Students select from a repertoire of processes and strategies by reflecting on their understanding of the way language works for a variety of purposes in a range of contexts. |
Speaking & Listening, Processes & Strategies Substrand
Students select from a repertoire of processes and strategies when speaking and listening by reflecting on their understanding of the way oral language works.
Reading, Processes & Strategies Substrand
Students select from a repertoire of processes and strategies when reading by reflecting on their understanding of the way language works. |
Brief Description
Students and teachers read and promote picture books, storybooks, novels and other popular literature.
Project Duration
This program can be maintained for a certain time period (e.g. a term or semester) but is best if conducted throughout the year. It should run for one session per week or one per fortnight as desired. Each session should run for approximately 40 minutes.
Expected Outcomes
Students develop a love of books and reading and encourage each other to read widely.
Learning Experiences
These comments are aimed at the teacher, teacher librarian and/or resource teacher working together on the class wide reading program.
Establish the Program
Set up a program where students come to the library on a regular timetabled basis to find and talk about reading resources, and to have time to read. The program can have various titles:
 | RAGE - Read and Gain Enjoyment |
| RIBIT - Read In Bed It's Terrific |
| ROBOT - Read Our Books On Themes |
| FISH - Fiction in School Hours |
| LOVIT - Literature On Various Interesting Themes |
| DEAR - Drop Everything and Read |
Or the students can invent a name of their choosing.
Give each student a file which will be kept in the library. In the file is an A3 sheet where the students can record the books read. This can have various headings according to type of book. (e.g. RIBIT sheets with a range of genres, a My Favourite Books list, Reading Ladders, or Favourite Authors.)
 for an example.
Model Book Talks
At the beginning of the program talk about several of the books that you have read and have other books displayed on a table nearby.
While enthusing the students with popular and classical fiction stories, describe such things as plot, theme, character, language, setting, over the course of the program, so that students become familiar with the terms and their meaning.
In this way you are focusing on the Reading Conventions Substrand as well as encouraging wide reading.
Students Begin Wide Reading
Students choose books, have time to read in the library (approximately 20 minutes), and check them out of the library for reading at home.
When they have finished reading, they record the books on the A3 sheet. You can set milestone targets such as 5, 10 or 15 books read, and give small rewards to students who meet the targets. You can present major awards of books at the end of the year.
During the course of the program you can encourage or require the students use the library automated catalogue to find books according to various genres or subject headings, series, titles or authors.
 Assessment
Ongoing monitoring of student achievement in the Reading Strand Outcomes can be done through an Observation Checklist.
Students Prepare for Book Talks - Discussion & Negotiation of Criteria
Repeat the above procedure each time the students come to the library. After a time of teacher modelling, discuss the criteria for a good book talk. Students suggest such things as:
| Re-telling the story in a succinct way. |
| Showing how the characters are portrayed and developed. |
| Understanding the setting. |
| Giving own opinion about the story. |
Give the students summaries of the relevant Student Outcome Statements for Reading and Speaking & Listening. Each level should include pointers indicating how students could demonstrate achievement. Over the course of the program you and the students can negotiate and supplement these statements, and develop criteria for each level.
Use these Outcome Statements to negotiate proformas which you, the students and their peers can use to assess the book talks. These can be either in the form of a checklist, a sheet for annotations, or as simple as a Book Talk Tally Sheet which can be used by both teachers and students. Students can use tables on a computer to create these proformas, and you and the students can trial various models over the course of the year.
Assessment
Ongoing monitoring of students' achievement in the Reading and Speaking & Listening Strand Outcomes through the use of the observation checklists.
These checklists are just one context where the Reading and Speaking & Listening Outcomes are monitored. Many other contexts will be monitored in the classroom and in other library classes, e.g. when researching a topic, discussing in a group situation, when engaged in a one-to-one conversation with the teacher, and so on.
Students Present Book Talks
Ask a small number (3-5) of different students each session to present the book talks for the following week/fortnight.
Select the titles for each student from the list of books they have recorded on their A3 sheets. (This avoids the temptation for students to record books that they have not read in order to reach certain targets.)
Discuss the relevant outcome statements for Reading, and Speaking & Listening with the students and encourage them to use these statements to develop good book talks and achieve at a higher level.
During the book talks encourage other students to discuss the books, adding their opinions once each talk is completed. Also conduct regular discussion about why some book talks demonstrate a higher level of achievement than others.
Assessment
Conduct self, peer and teacher assessment of the book talks using the Assessment Proforma derived by the students from the Reading and Speaking & Listening outcome statements.
for an example of a peer assessment sheet.
for 2 useful self assessment sheets.
Conduct ongoing monitoring of students' achievement in the Reading and Speaking & Listening Strand Outcomes through the use of the observation checklists.
Learning Technologies
As the program develops over the year encourage students to use the learning technologies to develop their book talks. The use of PowerPoint for presentations can be enhanced with a data projector or Averkey and large screen television. There are many possibilities for the integration of learning technologies in the book talks. Here are just a few:
| Encourage students to link to the Internet to show authors' web pages and other books written by the various authors as part of their talks. |
| Some students will develop their own web pages for various authors and present these with their book talks. |
| A video camera can be used to record the presentations and then be replayed to provide students with feedback on their talk and for peer assessment. These presentations can be collected by the teacher and used as a resource for students in other classes. |
Identifying Information
Philippa Ryan
Curriculum Officer
Library and Information Services
Education Department of Western Australia
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