Instructional Approach: Literature

Literature-based approaches focus on authentic literature. In other words, the literature is not designed to reinforce certain reading skills, sight words, or vocabulary. Rather, children commonly read articles, stories, books, and reference materials that they find interesting.

You may have heard of such literature-based methods as reader’s workshop, literature discussions, and book clubs.Sometimes a group of children read the same selection. Other times the group of children read different selections about the same topic or by the same author.

After reading, children get together for literature discussions that are designed to allow the students to engage in authentic dialog about the selections. In other words, these discussions emulate what mature readers do when they join a book club. These discussions are dissimilar to what mature readers do because they also commonly involve discussions about how to effectively use pertinent reading skills to successfully comprehend the text.

Web site features that fit well with Literature-based approaches