Using the Literature Based Approach to Enhance the Comprehension Levels (PART 5)

Authentic Assessment

Alternative assessment requires students to demonstrate the skills and knowledge that cannot be assessed using a timed multiple-choice or true-false test. It seeks to reveal students' critical-thinking and evaluation skills by asking students to complete open-ended tasks that often take more than one class period to complete. It uses activities that reveal what students can do with language, emphasizing their strengths instead of their weaknesses.

Literature Based Approach allows for the students to be active agents in their own learning. It promotes collaborative work so that learners contribute to class activities through direct interaction with their teacher as well as fellow peers. Because it is student centered, and it develops their meta-cognitive abilities, students share information through asking questions and reflecting on their own understanding in making sense of what they were told. In order to determine whether or not learning took place, one has to give assessment activities. Authentic assessment is encouraged in most if not all school today. The Literature Based Approach permits assessment tasks to be either traditional or authentic.  

Other things to Note 

Prescribed texts will not serve to immerse the students in reading. They need books which they are able to read for what Rosenblatt (1978) describes as aesthetic purposes. That is, reading for pleasure. Smith and Wilhelm (2002), both authors, found that allowing students’ choice in their reading selection broadens text types read in class and encourages interest in reading itself. 

Children learn to read by reading. 

The more they are immersed in reading, the more skillful they become at reading. The more they read, is the more likely they are to understand what they read. This idea is supported by the American Association Of Teachers (Feb 1942), where they state that ‘We learn to read by reading and in order for them to achieve that, they must be provided with the reading material which challenges their intellect as well as suitable for their age and grade level.  

Identifying students’ interests is of cardinal importance in the development of children’s comprehension skills. It helps not only to keep them focused in class but also to determine their various talents. This technique of accommodating students’ various talents is supported by Grant L. Martin, PhD, (n.d), who states accommodation as being flexible in classroom procedures by matching instructional techniques to the learning features of specific students. This is also known as remediation, an individualized procedure based on planning to meet students’ individual needs. Therefore, by having applied this to her class the teacher/researcher chose to call up on various talents that the students may have. At the end of each of those lessons, it was evident that more students had learnt than from lessons where they were not so interested.

Boys and girls learn differently. 

As stated by Lisa Zamosky , MD (n.d), reading and writing may be more difficult for boys in early elementary years than for girls. According to Jane McFann in her book ‘Boys and Books’; ‘young male readers lag behind their female counterparts in literacy skills. It was evident in most classes that the male students shied away from reading whilst the girls were eager to read. This might have been due to the interest of the boys. In ‘You Got to Be the Book’ by Jeffrey Wilhelm explains that in order for students to understand text, they must first interact with that text responsively. Boys and girls interact with text in different ways. Boys need to be introduced to books that engage their full attention.  

Evaluating lessons and any activity that was done in any particular class helped the teacher and researcher to determine the strengths and challenges of the students as well as within the teaching method.