What is Shared & Interactive Reading

Shared reading or interactive reading is an interactive reading session where students join together in the reading experience or share while reading a textbook.

The class teacher or any subject teacher guides the entire reading process.

The interactive reading process is often applied to large and oversized books to reduce the pressure of reading alone.

The session also enables the teacher to assess the reading skill of every student based on their proficiency and expression.

The books with illustrations and enlarged prints are best suited for shared reading as it allows each student of the same group to see and read the text.

This content will discuss the reasons, methods and benefits of shared reading. 

Fundamental Reasons & Benefits of Shared Reading 

a. Shared reading helps the struggling readers with full support. 

b. Interactive reading enables the students to enjoy the text which they may have found boring or monotonous while reading on their own.

c. Shared reading of a familiar text enables the students to upgrade their vocabulary (word stock) and improve their reading fluency. 

d. One of the most compelling reasons behind the shared reading sessions is that it helps every student feel confident and successful in their own way.

e. Students learn how to work as a team together through shared reading.

Sequential Steps to conduct Interactive Reading 

a. At first, the educators need to introduce the story to the students by providing details about the title, content and the author.

If the book contains illustrations, the students must be offered the necessary details about the illustrator. 

b. You, as a teacher, can ask your students about their predictive opinion regarding the text.

c. The educator should read the story aloud with proper expression and tone giving more focus on pronunciation.

In the course, the teacher can ask the students short questions to assess their depth to listen.

d. As an educator, you can finish the text with your personal view and reactions.

Similarly, ask your students about their ideas and opinions regarding the story. 

e. You can encourage the students to explain the story in brief in their own language. 

f.Instruct your students to read the texts on their own to understand it better, or you can read the story aloud again.

g. Arrange for some follow-up activities to engage the student’s minds in the text.

You can ask your students to create handcrafts projects based on the storyline. 

The shared reading process varies based on subjects like language, social science, science, etc for which the educator needs to follow the best methods of interactive reading to impart knowledge.

The teachers have to provide the students with enough time and opportunity to practise reading with fluency and appropriate expression.

In between, the teacher can ask the students questions to check their concentration level. 

Hope you get a wholesome idea about shared/interactive reading.