Does Collaborative Learning Support Literacy?

Collaborative learning promotes literacy by allowing students to engage with each other and experience reading in different ways.  You can give twenty students the same book and discover that they have twenty different prospective, or thoughts, or ideas about that book.  Allowing students to share their reading experience with others promotes a better understanding of a text and overall enjoyment for reading.  Students sometimes learn better from their peers than teachers so allowing students to communicate with each other and share their thoughts and ideas can be extremely beneficial in promoting both the comprehension and enjoyment of reading.  Students can share books that they enjoyed that may interest other students or discuss parts of a shared text that they found most interesting or needed clarification on.

Collaborative learning can also promote diversity in classrooms.  Students from different cultures or races working together can help students celebrate the similarities and differences in people and strengthen peer relationships.  Students can also teach each other about different cultures or customs.

Students can also learn how to debate and have discussion though collaborative learning.  It is beneficial to have student’s debate with each other because many students would feel more comfortable debating with their classmates rather than teachers or other adults.  Collaborative learning can help students develop the discussion and debate skills that they will need not only in school but throughout their lives.