A teacher can use literature in integrating skills in different subject areas. The students will certainly enjoy learning new lessons in particular subject area while at the same time enjoying different literary genres.

Literature has a significant value in the classroom. Manuel, (2008) discussed its value in her article, Reading Strategies Using Library Hub Books:

• Literature is a superior substitute for worksheets.

Children spend most of their time in school filling out worksheets and doing all sorts of exercises. These are usually unrelated and discontinuous skill builders that hardly tap into a child’s schema of the world. Reading is best developed when texts engaged all of the child’s schema and abilities. Literature provides the child with the experience of reading.

• Literature provide for individual differences.

Children mat work at different speeds, may have diverse interests and may have different ways of learning. Some basal readers allow provisions of the first two. However, most do not adequately provide equal opportunity for children whose ways of learning are different from most. Using literature materials which suits a children’s interests, rate of reading, levels of ability in the various skills and ways of looking at the world is far easier than forcing a child to fit into the mold which the basal predicts most children would fit into snugly.

• Literature provides opportunities for personal growth.

Literature provides students with opportunities to reflect on their life, values, ambition, self-concept and almost anything that mirrors a real life situation.

• Literature enables motivated practice of interactive reading.

Reading books of their own choice escalates the level of motivation in students. With guidance in the making the “right” choices, children find that stories give them pleasure while teachers see that the kid develops the reading habit. When kids like the books they read, it is more likely that they will be more involved, and thus gain more from the experience.

• Literature enriches other curriculum areas.

Using literature to help children to identify with social and scientific situations of others makes the tasks far easier. Reading about how a teenage Jew experiences the Holocaust brings home the point better than if a lecture is delivered by a teacher.

• Literature provides models and inspirations for writing.

Students are made aware of how writers develop their plots, the personalities of the characters, and choose words to send across clear messages. Thus they tend to apply these insights as they write their own stories.

• Provides aesthetic experiences literature.

Aesthetic experience is an intangible event that occurs when a book affects one’s emotion and appreciation of beauty in all its manifestations. Illustrations and writing style are important contributors to this feeling. How a writer plays with words, or uses literary figure of speech, constructs sentences can make selection much more beautiful and illicit greater enjoyment.

• Sharing literature creates avenues for social cohesion.

Literature, especially when it is exceptional quality, is shared with peers. Literature guides students into more meaningful interactions that may result in action based on consensus and shared “ethos”.

• Literature demonstrates how ethical responsibilities are met.

Books can show how other persons resolve conflict situations in their lives so that the “right and wrong” actions can infer. Though vicarious, the narration of how an individual struggles with a problem can provide a student with model of how to behave in such situations.

• Literature contributes to the student’s development of cultural understanding.

Literature makes a student aware of certain values and attitudes such as appreciation and acceptance of the ethnicity of other peoples and respect for other culture and ways.

Reference:

Manuel, R.A. Teaching Them How to Read. Lecture delivered on the seminar Using Library Hub Books. April 12, 2008

 

 

By: Amalia C. Cortez | Teacher III | Dr. Victoria B. Roman Memorial Highschool | Pantingan Pilar, Bataan