In the context of the contemporary information society, which is characterized by the massive consumption of volatile multimedia content, developing literacy skills among lower secondary school students represents a critical priority and a major challenge for the educational system. Literacy levels during early adolescence do not merely condition performance in the humanities; they dictate the capacity for critical decoding, processing, and utilizing information across all curricular areas and in daily life.
This paper demonstrates the methodological and formative value of collective reading activities, using the global initiative International Read Aloud Day (IRAD) as its implementation framework. The central objective of this study was to transform this single calendar event into a long-term instructional strategy capable of stimulating the cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-emotional mechanisms of lower secondary students.
Methodologically, this approach integrated active techniques specific to cooperative learning, such as the “Author’s Chair”, performative round-robin reading, and, most notably, “Literature Circles” structured around explicit roles (discussion director, connector, illustrator, and word wizard). This framework facilitated a transition from passive textual decoding to deep, personalized hermeneutic analysis.
The results obtained through process monitoring and formative evaluation feedback questionnaires indicate a significant improvement in group dynamics, a reduction in public speaking anxiety, and an increase in textual comprehension indices among students who were previously reluctant to engage in independent reading. The study concludes by advocating for the expansion of these best practices into current instructional routines through bi-monthly micro-reading clubs, proving that reading aloud remains a fundamental tool for inclusion, literacy, and social cohesion in lower secondary education.
Keywords: literacy, lower secondary education, reading strategies, IRAD, literature circles, cooperative learning
1. Introduction and Theoretical Context
In the contemporary educational landscape, the concept of literacy has expanded far beyond its traditional definition, which was limited to the simple acquisition of reading and writing skills. Today, literacy represents a complex complex of cognitive, metacognitive, and social competences that enable an individual to understand, interpret, critically evaluate, and actively use written information across various real-world contexts. Lower secondary education constitutes a critical transition phase in the development of these skills. At this age, students must make the cognitive leap from “learning to read” (characteristic of primary education) to “reading to learn” and structuring their own critical thinking.
However, educators currently face a worrying reality: a sharp decline in the appetite for deep, linear reading. In an era dominated by digital technologies and social media networks, the cognitive universe of preadolescents is shaped by a massive consumption of volatile multimedia content, characterized by rapid visual stimuli and fragmented texts. This phenomenon generates what specialists term “cognitive impatience” – a growing difficulty among students to follow complex narrative arcs, decode figurative meanings, or maintain focused attention on a printed text for extended periods. National and international reports (such as PISA assessments) sound an alarm, indicating troubling percentages of functional illiteracy among lower secondary students; many are capable of mechanically reading a text but find themselves unable to extract the main idea or formulate a logical conclusion based on it.
From an instructional standpoint, this reading crisis necessitates an urgent reconfiguration of literacy promotion strategies. Mandatory reading, imposed as an individual homework assignment and often evaluated through punitive measures, has proven its limitations, worsening students’ rejection of books. It is necessary to shift the focus toward the social, interactive, and playful dimensions of reading. Daniel Pennac emphasized in his landmark essay that reading does not tolerate the imperative mode (“must”), but rather demands to be shared and lived out as a collective experience [3].
Within this pedagogical context, global awareness events like International Read Aloud Day (IRAD) acquire significant strategic value, moving beyond the status of a festive school calendar event. Reading aloud and collective reading activities are not exclusively early literacy tools meant for preschoolers or primary school pupils. Applied at the lower secondary level, reading aloud becomes an active method for facilitating comprehension, a catalyst for social interaction, and a powerful instrument for inclusion. When a text is read performatively and discussed in a group, it ceases to be an abstract set of graphic signs and becomes a space for the negotiation of meaning, where students can project their own life experiences and develop their emotional intelligence. Consequently, integrating cooperative learning strategies into this event offers a viable alternative for transforming reading from a solitary obligation into a community act that generates meaning and aesthetic pleasure.
2. Theoretical Framework
The study of literacy in lower secondary education requires a multidisciplinary approach situated at the intersection of modern reading didactics, cognitive developmental psychology, and educational neurosciences. During early adolescence (ages 11–15), students’ cognitive structures undergo a transition from concrete operations to formal, abstract thinking. This shift in mental paradigms directly influences how written text is processed: the student is no longer just a passive recipient of information but becomes an active builder of meaning, capable of hermeneutic reflection and critical analysis.
From the perspective of reading didactics, the process of text comprehension is conceptualized as a dynamic interaction between the reader’s cognitive schemata (prior knowledge, life experiences, lexical background) and the intrinsic structure of the text [2]. Alina Pamfil emphasizes that the act of reading at the lower secondary level must be configured as a guided journey, where the teacher no longer delivers ready-made interpretations but rather constructs contexts in which the student learns to utilize self-regulation strategies for comprehension [1]. When a preadolescent encounters a complex text, they require metacognitive tools to monitor whether they have correctly understood the message, to formulate hypotheses, and to revise predictions as they progress through the text [4].
A specific problem for this age group is the correlation between declining motivation for reading and the socio-emotional transformations characteristic of puberty. During this period, the peer group becomes the primary authority for the young person’s social validation. If independent reading is perceived within the peer group as a solitary, dull, or penalizing activity, the student will tend to reject it to avoid marginalization. For this reason, constructivist learning theories (grounded in Vygotsky’s work on the Zone of Proximal Development) maintain that social interaction potentiates learning. Transported into the realm of literacy, this principle demonstrates that socially mediated reading – reading together and collective debate – transforms the act of decoding from an individual chore into a shared cultural experience validated by the peer group [5].
Furthermore, the literature circles model, theorized by Harvey Daniels, offers a solid foundation for democratizing the act of reading in the classroom [6]. By distributing specific, rotating roles (such as the connector or discussion director), cooperative learning eliminates rigid classroom hierarchies and reduces performance anxiety. Students with low literacy levels are no longer isolated in their inability to comprehend a text on their own; instead, they benefit from the cognitive “scaffolding” provided by their peers and the teacher during performative, aloud reading sessions [6].
Reading aloud, performed by the teacher as a model and continued by the students, activates auditory memory and helps students perceive textual prosody, rhythm, and sentence structure – elements essential for a nuanced understanding of literary texts. Thus, the theoretical foundation for promoting literacy through IRAD-style events relies on a pedagogical certainty: transforming reading from an individual task into a discursive, collaborative practice represents the optimal path toward forming an autonomous and reflexive reader in today’s school environment.
3. Case Study / Practical Applications
To demonstrate the operational value of this theoretical framework, we present a case study based on an instructional project implemented in a 7th-grade classroom on the occasion of International Read Aloud Day (IRAD). The student cohort (24 students) displayed pronounced heterogeneity regarding reading competences; approximately 30% of them exhibited reluctance toward written texts and possessed below-average literacy levels.
The project was designed not as an isolated celebratory activity, but as a clinical application of active cooperative methods spread across two unified class periods. The selected anchor text was a representative excerpt from the novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio, chosen due to its high-impact emotional themes (inclusion, bullying, tolerance) that resonate strongly with preadolescent psychology.
The instructional design was structured into three methodological phases, adhering to the standard ERRE framework (Evocation, Realization of meaning, Reflection, Extension):
Phase I: Evocation and Ice-breaking (Pre-reading) – Duration: 15 minutes
The process debuted with the “Prediction based on textual and visual clues” technique. Students were distributed worksheets containing exclusively an illustration showing the profile of the main character (August Pullman) and the quote: “I know I’m not an ordinary kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things…”.
Task: Organized into groups of 4, students had 7 minutes to complete an “Anticipation Chart” graphic organizer, answering the questions: Who is this character? What challenge do they face? Why do they need courage?
Instructional Goal: To activate prior cognitive schemata, stimulate curiosity, and establish a horizon of expectation [1].
Phase II: Realization of Meaning through Performative and Relay Reading (During reading) – Duration: 35 minutes
Reading the text was not done individually or linearly. Instead, it combined model reading (performed by the teacher to establish correct rhythm, intonation, and rhetorical emphasis) with relay reading (performed by students selected spontaneously through the symbolic passing of a “reading torch”).
Throughout the text, three strategic pauses for immediate reflection were introduced, guided by the “Think-Pair-Share” technique:
Pause 1 (Following the character’s physical self-description): Students discussed in pairs for 2 minutes how the stares of others can influence self-esteem.
Pause 2 (Before August’s first day of school): Each pair had to formulate a piece of advice they would offer the character to help manage his emotions.
Phase III: Deep Reflection through “Literature Circles” (Post-reading) – Duration: 40 minutes
This stage constituted the core of the practical application. The class was divided into 6 groups of 4 students. Within each group, students were assigned precise, micro-functional roles with specific worksheets, following the model theorized by Harvey Daniels [6]:
The Discussion Director: Responsible for generating at least 3 open-ended questions (e.g., “What would have happened if…?”, “How do you judge the action of…?”) to maintain an active debate within their group.
The Connector: Found text-to-self connections (linking August’s experience to moments when the student felt excluded) and text-to-world connections (correlating it with the phenomenon of bullying in contemporary schools) [5].
The Word Wizard: Identified key words, neologisms, or metaphorical structures, explaining their semantic context and their impact on the reader’s mood.
The Illustrator: Graphically transposed a high-impact sequence or the dominant emotion of the analyzed excerpt through a quick drawing, sketch, or conceptual mind-map.
Each group had 20 minutes to solve tasks specific to their roles, followed by 20 minutes of plenary reporting (The Character Gallery). Group leaders presented their conclusions while the illustrators displayed their work on the classroom board. The teacher’s role during this phase was exclusively that of a facilitator and cultural mediator, monitoring interactions and offering discreet formative feedback [2].
4. Results and Discussion (Instructional Impact)
Evaluating the instructional impact of this strategy, which relied on collective reading and literature circles, combined qualitative monitoring methods (systematic observation of learning behavior) with quantitative tools (an anonymous Likert-scale feedback questionnaire and analysis of student work).
Quantitatively, compiling responses from the feedback questionnaires completed by the 24 students at the end of the project highlighted the following aspects:
87.5% (21 students) affirmed that the group dynamics within the literature circles helped them understand the characters’ emotions and the deep message of the text more easily compared to traditional independent reading.
79.1% (19 students) stated that being assigned a specific role (director, connector, etc.) significantly diminished their public speaking anxiety and fear of formulating an incorrect response.
91.6% (22 students) expressed a desire for this type of collaborative activity based on literary or non-literary texts to be replicated during regular course hours.
Qualitatively, analysis of the instructional process revealed major modifications across three targeted dimensions: cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional.
On the cognitive and metacognitive plane, the transition from passive decoding to group hermeneutics activated higher-order thinking processes. Students with lower literacy levels, who frequently exhibited passivity or refused solitary tasks, benefited from the cognitive scaffolding provided by their peers [6]. Within the Connector role, for example, preadolescents demonstrated a remarkable capacity to decode the subtle mechanisms of bullying described in Wonder and associate them with concrete situations in their current school environment. This confirms Florentina Sâmihăian’s theories that reading becomes a living space for negotiating meaning when it transcends sterile grammatical or structural analysis [2].
On the linguistic and discursive plane, the activity carried out within the Word Wizard role allowed for the contextualized and organic expansion of active vocabulary. Students did not memorize mechanical dictionary definitions; instead, they explained semantic nuances based on the main character’s state of mind. The plenary discussions reflected in The Character Gallery showed improved coherence in oral discourse and more rigorous use of argumentation techniques, as the specific nature of the task required students to support their opinions with concrete citations from the text read during the relay [4].
On the socio-emotional plane, the impact was perhaps most visible. Group cohesion increased because collective performative reading functioned as a shared cathartic experience. A reduction in social barriers within the student body was observed; informal classroom leaders collaborated closely and on equal footing with shy or marginalized students. The mandatory cooperation imposed by the method trained students in active and tolerant listening to divergent opinions, transforming the language arts class into a true laboratory for civic education and empathy development [5].
The discussion of these results reconfirms that literacy difficulties at the lower secondary level are not caused by an structural inability of students to resonate with literature, but rather by the wear and tear of traditional instructional formulas based on monologal and solitary reception. When reading is contextualized, socially mediated, and transformed into a platform for interaction, it reclaims its fundamental function as a tool for knowledge and self-discovery [1, 2].
5. Conclusions and Methodological Recommendations
The methodological approach reflected in this article highlights that promoting literacy in lower secondary education cannot be effectively achieved by maintaining rigid instructional patterns focused on solitary, mandatory reading that is often evaluated through the mechanical reproduction of pre-established literary commentary. In a digital era that fragments attention and radically alters the cultural consumption habits of preadolescents, schools have a duty to reconfigure the status of reading. Global awareness events, such as International Read Aloud Day (IRAD), provide the ideal pedagogical pretext to demonstrate that reading aloud and collective interpretation possess remarkable formative resources capable of reigniting young people’s appetite for the world of books.
The main conclusions drawn from implementing this project target three fundamental levels of the educational act:
The Cognitive Dimension: Socially mediated reading structured around cooperative learning strategies (such as literature circles) provides the critical scaffolding students need to transition from simple decoding to deep, autonomous comprehension of complex texts [6].
The Affective-Motivational Dimension: Shifting the perspective from “you must read” to “let’s read and discover together” reduces performance anxiety, holds the student accountable through active roles, and transforms the classroom from a space of punitive evaluation into an emotionally secure learning community [3].
The Inclusive Dimension: Collaborative methods value different learning styles and individual paces of development. Students with literacy difficulties or low functional literacy levels are no longer marginalized but organically integrated into the dynamics, their progress subtly supported by interaction with group peers [5].
In the spirit of transferability of best practices promoted by educational research, we formulate the following methodological recommendations for lower secondary educators:
Systematize, Do Not Isolate Activities: It is strongly recommended that IRAD strategies do not remain a singular event in the annual school calendar. Teachers should integrate these practices into current instructional routines by organizing “micro-reading clubs” or 15-minute performative read-aloud segments held on a bi-monthly basis.
Diversify and Contextualize Textual Materials: Texts chosen for reading aloud must be calibrated to the interests, psychological concerns, and comprehension levels of preadolescents [1]. Alongside classic, canonized literature, it is opportune to introduce contemporary young adult literature, graphic novels, and non-literary or multimodal texts from mass media, which offer a direct anchor into the student’s reality.
Flexibilize Roles in Cooperative Learning: Within literature circles, roles (director, connector, illustrator, etc.) must be rotated periodically from one activity to another [6]. This dynamic allows each student to test and develop diverse competences, preventing stagnation or confinement to a single cognitive comfort zone.
Relinquish Teacher Centrality: During post-reading debates, the educator must strictly assume the role of a facilitator, cultural mediator, and discreet observer [2]. Their interventions should stimulate student argumentation rather than impose a single critical vision, leaving open space for the collective negotiation of text meaning.
Ultimately, the success of school policies addressing functional illiteracy and literacy development directly depends on the teacher’s methodological courage to lower the book from its untouched pedestal of obligation and place it at the center of live social interactions in the classroom [1, 4].
References
[1] PAMFIL, Alina. Didactica limbii și literaturii române pentru gimnaziu: structuri, strategii, perspective. Pitești: Paralela 45, 2016. ISBN 978-973-47-2315-7.
[2] SÂMIHĂIAN, Florentina. O didactică a lecturii: între teorie și practică. București: Humanitas Educațional, 2014. ISBN 978-973-689-703-0.
[3] PENNAC, Daniel. Ca un roman. Translated by Emanoil Marcu. București: Nemira, 2019. ISBN 978-606-43-0518-3.
[4] CRĂCIUN, Gheorghe. Introducere în didactica lecturii. Brașov: Aula, 2004. ISBN 973-8201-34-X.
[5] GHIȚĂ, Ramona and POPESCU, Maria. Strategii inovative pentru stimularea interesului pentru lectură la preadolescenți. Revista de Pedagogie. 2022, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 45–58. ISSN 0034-8678.
[6] DANIELS, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups. 2nd ed. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2002. ISBN 978-1571103338.