22/01/2025

The Faculty of Education Sciences presents a guide for literary gatherings to promote reading

Mariona Graell and Maria Pujol-Valls, lecturers at the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Education Sciences, have published a guide for pre-school and primary school teachers that aims to help them promote reading through literary gatherings. This proposal has already been presented at the Escola Pia Terrassa, the Escola Ramón Pont in Terrassa and the Escola Pia Balmes, and has been very well received by teachers, who will begin to implement it in their classrooms in the near future.

On the International Day of Education, UIC Barcelona is pleased to present this proposal, the result of research by the two Doctors of Education in the field of literacy. After a thorough analysis of a selection of 244 books related to children's rights from the Associació de Mestres Rosa Senat (Rosa Sensat Teachers Association), the researchers concluded that there are ten values that appear most frequently in this selection, including safety, friendship, dignity and respect.

The research led the teachers to put the results of the study into practice and discuss the values and principles that arise from reading stories in the classroom. This guide, therefore, becomes a flexible tool that describes the steps to follow when carrying out a good literary discussion in the classroom, using the results of the study as a theoretical framework for its application.

“We saw a change in the children's language from the first session we did in the schools to the last one,” explains UIC Barcelona lecturer Mariona Graell. “They had a new way of understanding literary reality and how to approach the book,” adds the teacher. The recommendations in the guide are ultimately aimed at nurturing children's love of reading.

The document is intended to be a guide for literary discussions in the classroom, especially for teachers of the second cycle of pre-school education and the first cycle of primary education. According to the authors, literary gatherings are educational spaces that help to develop a taste for reading through informal conversation. This dialogue fosters children's critical spirit and awakens their emotions, values and ideas. “When children talk after reading a book, they learn to talk and develop literary judgement, as well as building themselves as people,” they say.

So, what is the role of the teacher in this process? The guide indicates that the adult, in other words the teacher, should facilitate the dialogue by raising questions and prompting the children's assumptions. The facilitator should, at the beginning, maintain a neutral stance towards the learners' opinions and explore why they choose to say what they say. The guide delves into this conversation process, providing ideas for questions to spark discussion.

The guide also refers to literature and previous research to classify recommended books for children, taking into account the characteristics of each reading stage, from stories that work on play skills to popular tales or picture books. At the end of the guide, the authors recommend making a final evaluation and conclusion of the book together with the children, asking them if they would recommend the book, if they liked it or if it had given them a new perspective.