Elementary School, Literature Curriculum

Using Literature for Teaching Communications

Communication in the elementary school includes the areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Through these modes and via texts, learners can use these same texts and modes of communication to mentally travel to places, times, and locations that would otherwise be inaccessible. Current practices and trends demonstrate that literature is used as models for reading and writing. There are three basic approaches to using literature to teach reading: (1) top-down/reader-based, (2) bottom-up/text-based, and (3) integrated/balanced. The top-down/reader-based approach sees teachers and learners beginning with the whole of a text, the big meaning or major concept, and then moving down to sentences, words, syllables, letters, and sounds. In the bottom-up approach, learning begins with the smallest part of language, sounds, and letters, and then moves to sentences, and finally paragraphs and the whole text. The third approach, integrated/balanced, does not go simply up or down but rather integrates and recursively balances the strengths from the other approaches. This balance is the current goal, and therefore the purpose for using literature. Many schools that use a balanced approach for reading [Page 294]also incorporate a writer's workshop that then uses the same texts that the learners read from as models for their writing, both for content and mechanics.

Basal Readers and Trade Books

In some classrooms, the combination of text selections is literally handed to the teachers and learners through the use of a basal reader or trade books. Basals are specifically published graduated books created, and used for, teaching. Within each basal, portions of novels, poems, and other genres are shortened or modified to meet a particular grade-level vocabulary. These books align with bottom-up/text-based approaches. Alternately, trade books are those picture books or novels that are published as stand-alone texts. These are the books available in the children's section of stores and libraries. These trade books are not constructed with the sole purpose of monitoring the vocabulary level or to teach readers at a particular stage. Trade books are matched with the top-down/reader-based approach. Classroom teachers are rarely the policy or purchasing decision makers and are often left to respond to the texts they are given, doing their best to integrate materials with personal teaching philosophies and expectations of the district or school. For example, a teacher who believes in the bottom-up/reader-based approach may be in a setting full of basal readers. In this case, the teacher selects a nonfiction or expository text to read along with a science unit. Or later that month, the teacher may initiate an author study and use some selections from the basal while supplementing them with trade books from the school or public library. Flexibility, creativity, and attention to the needs and interests of the students can help modify any of these approaches to provide a comprehensive, engaging literature curriculum for students.

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