Reading to learn: How teachers interact with their students in Primary Education

Abstract

This work studies the oral exchanges between teacher (as an expert reader) and student (as trainee) to determine the type of coaching provided during group reading activities as a joint construction of meaning 3rd, 5th and 7th grade of primary education. The system of analysis of the practice proposed by Sánchez et al. (2008) was used to describe the internal organization of those readings as episodes and to typify the aids or mediations by their function (regulation, production or feedback) and the level of autonomy provided. The results show essentially the presence of variable nuclear episodes in group reading (reading aloud and interpreting for evaluation). The mediations show a scarce presence of regulatory aids and a moderate number of non-invasive internal and feedback aids in the interpretation episode. There are differences among levels only, and not among subjects. The implications for teachers training and innovation are discussed.