Fostering Meaningful Literary Discussions 

by Mary Najar

I recently read the book, How Tutoring Works (Frey, Fisher, and Almarode, 2022). This book focuses on raising an educator's impact to accelerate student learning and achievement. It contains many useful strategies that can immediately be applied when instructing a wide range of learners. 

One topic that I found especially helpful was a section about fostering meaningful discussions while reading. Digging deeper into text is important to help learners understand what they are reading at a higher level. It is important to give them the opportunity to question, clarify thinking, investigate further, disagree, and struggle with complex issues. This process helps learners assume a higher level of authority and “co-construct knowledge under the guidance of a tutor (teacher, parent…) who facilitates the discussion rather than presents information.” (Frey, Fisher, and Almadore, 2022) 

The emphasis is to have readers construct their own meaning through discussions and guided questions. This means the students are doing the thinking instead of you providing the information for them to learn. It also encouraged adequate wait time to give learners the opportunity to process and think about questions before answering.

Fostering Dialogue and Discussion

How Tutoring Works p. 83

How Tutoring Works is a quick read (109 pages), but it packs a lot of useful information into those pages. This book is not just for tutors, it is for anyone who wants to increase their impact when working with learners.