Implications

The broader implications to these findings could lead to more thoughtful, excited, and engaged readers in classrooms around the county.  Today’s students are reading less than in years past and far fewer students read outside of school for pleasure.  Kelly Gallagher’s book Readicide states, “Less than one-third of thirteen-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from twenty years earlier” (2009, p.41).  The use of literature circles could help increase student motivation while reading.  Exposure to this may help those students who despise reading see it in a new light.  Literature circles can be used with almost any age of students making it a very useful tool for teachers to understand.  By implementing them in your classroom, students will choose from a variety of books and work with their peers to create personal meaning.  Gallagher also points out that, “students who read a novel with many unique words actually learned the meaning of those words from context clues only” (2009, p.43). If more schools began to use of literature circles in their classrooms, I think that there would be positive implications for reading programs but most importantly for the students.