The benefits of classroom shared reading to children’s literacy skills and the fact that in the new Maltese National Literacy Strategy, shared reading was recognised as an integral part of literacy teaching during the early years cycle have urged Natalie Cachia to delve deeper into this reading approach.
In her study, Ms Cachia endeavoured to explore understandings, beliefs and practices of classroom shared reading of two Maltese early years teachers in response to the research question: What are Maltese early years teachers’ understandings, beliefs and practices of classroom shared reading?
The study has adopted an interpretive research paradigm, wherein semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather in-depth data. Interviews revealed interesting information, which was further complemented by classroom observations.
Themes drawn from both interviews and observations have unearthed links between participants’ understandings and beliefs about shared reading and their classroom practices.
On the other hand, external factors, such as curricular constraints, lack of time, lack of adequate resources and large groups of children in class, offer challenges for the participant teachers in terms of frequency and quality of shared reading.
Nonetheless, results indicate that overall, despite such barriers, teachers’ practices of shared reading were a reflection of their own understandings and beliefs. Indeed, implications suggest that in order to understand teachers’ pedagogical choices, in this case, shared reading practices, it is imperative to give due attention to teachers’ understandings and beliefs.
Furthermore, recommendations for future research are provided to ensure that our young children experience an enjoyable, yet effective, early literacy programme which includes frequent and quality classroom shared reading.
Ms Cachia’s scholarship was part-financed by the EU – European Social Fund (ESF) under Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, ‘Empowering people for more jobs and a better quality of life’. Her research work was partially funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship (Malta).