“…These include the development of oral language (Wu, 2009), vocabulary and comprehension (Edwards-Santoro et al, 2008), critical literacy (Clarke and Whitney, 2009) and written competence (Pantaleo, 2010). More broadly, book discussions enhance discipline-specific knowledge (Albright, 2002), collaborative skills (Pantaleo, 2004) and higher order thinking skills (Applebee, 1997;Clarke and Whitney, 2009;Murphy et al, 2009;Pantaleo, 2011;Pantaleo and Sipe, 2012). Classroom book discussions can also foster a love of reading and promote reader independence and intrinsic motivation to read (Cremin et al, 2009).…”