Reading and Talking about Books: A Critical Foundation for Intervention [FREE ACCESS]

Reluctant and struggling readers, many of whom are boys, are placed in reading intervention classes; however, often the environmental conditions of these intervention classrooms are not conducive for fostering a student’s love for reading. This article describes Cambourne’s optimal conditions for literacy learning and the results from implementing a 6-week reading intervention built upon these conditions. The classroom intervention consisted of teacher book talks, interactive read-alouds, independent reading with unrestricted choice of books, and partner talk. Three of the six sets of book talks and read-alouds were in genres or text formats of high interest to reluctant boy readers: graphica, information and sports, and scary/horror/mystery. Survey and interview data from students and teachers suggest that giving students access to books of high interest, unrestricted choice of texts, and time in school to read and talk about books can improve students’ reading attitude, reading self-efficacy, and amount of reading. The teachers’ reading beliefs and practices also changed. After the study, both teachers planned to implement the instructional strategies they learned from the study.