Colaborative Learning Supporting Literacy

This topic seems like a catch 22. There are so many aspects outside the classroom that influence it.  Students comprehend in so many ways that one technique may work in one area and not in another. The first article says that students comprehend better when summarizing, clarifying, questioning, and predicting are involved. The next says that when they try literacy circles the are unsuccessful. It all depends on the situation. Maybe using the first technique in the more urban school system would work better than the circles that the students were supposed to be working in. who knows maybe the children in the first school would learn better with literacy circles. The reason why the circles are not working is not because the technique doesn't work but because there are factors outside of their control. The children are not learning because of their economic status and the culture they were brought up in. I had literacy circles in my elementary school and my other students and I learned a lot. We talked about books, themes, and other related topics. Of course I grew up in a small suburban town with only seventeen kids in each class. They might have gone in a different direction if it was in an urban school with thirty kids to the class of mixed races. Teachers have to be taught how to handle every situation. The way a student in the inner city learns is different from how a child in a rich suburb learns. Yes it does support literacy but it needs to be applied in a way that is tentative and careful.