Bears Don't Need Phonics: an examination of the role of drama in laying the foundations for critical thinking in the reading process

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is based on a 6‐week intervention drama programme in selected inner‐city schools, as part of an in‐service project. The teaching involved working with selected classes for 2‐3 half‐day sessions. The aim was to raise the awareness of drama as a medium for the teaching of reading. The classes were in the lower primary track with children ranging from 4 to 8 years old. The data are based on observations made during the drama sessions by the researchers and the class teachers who were in observer and participant‐observer roles. This article is driven by the hypothesis that process drama contributes to the development of critical literacy skills. The researchers offer two ‘thick descriptions’ of literacy events, involving children with English as an emerging additional language, to illustrate that process drama may contribute to our understanding of developing critical literacy through a pedagogic approach which validates extensive drama intervention in the reading process. The evidence is opportunistic and grounded in the researchers’ short‐term intervention as active participants in the drama programme. The researchers make the claim that these literacy events are not unique, and that they set the need for a longitudinal study of drama and the reading process in the early years of education. The researchers aimed to address the question ‘Does process drama contribute to the development of critical literacy?‘