During my early years of teaching, I remember reading an article written in the mid-1930’s that proposed reading was “caught” much like one catches a cold. The article stated that not much could be done for children who didn’t catch reading during the primary years. I guess the appropriate conclusion was that most likely, they would remain weak and reluctant readers throughout their lives.  I remember thinking, what an absurd theory! I also remember feeling intense anger over placing the children who didn’t “catch” reading in a box labeled “hopeless.”

It’s weird, but in the context of what we know about reading today, this theory can be rationalized. Those children who listen to thousands of books and hear and engage in meaningful talk before they enter kindergarten are primed to “catch” reading.  That idea was not the point of the article, for the author offered no evidence, anecdotal or research-based, to support this static mindset.

Learning to Read as a Growth Mindset

When children interact with teachers and adults who believe it’s possible to create book joy, to enlarge vocabulary and background knowledge through conversations and by reading aloud several times a day, then gaps in literacy can close.

There are two kinds of read alouds students benefit from:

1.    Read aloud books you love and are passionate about sharing with students. Students sense the passion and hopefully work hard to replicate the reading experience for themselves.
2.    Read aloud to model how books affect your mind and feelings, how you interpret books and apply strategies like inferring and involve students in the process. When you present interactive read alouds, students have multiple opportunities to build and enlarge their mental models of what good readers do and eventually understand why they love reading.

Materials for Interactive Read Alouds

The interactive read aloud is the instructional piece of reading. It’s a mini-lesson where the teacher uses an anchor text to think-aloud to share how to apply a strategy such as inferring or literary elements and text structures.  An anchor text is short and the same genre as the unit of study. You can use an excerpt from a longer text, a picture book, or a short text such as an article, folk tale, short, short story, or myth. Two elements guide my choice of an anchor text:

•      it needs to be high quality literature; and
•      short enough to complete in seven to ten lessons.

If a picture book is too long, but a book you feel strongly about using, summarize some parts to move the lessons forward. Then, offer the book for independent reading so students can connect with the entire text.

Guidelines for Presenting Interactive Read Alouds

By organizing your units of study around a genre and theme such as biography and obstacles or informational texts and changes, student first observe how you think about a text and then work with a partner to practice what you model before moving to their own texts.  What follows are guidelines for presenting ten to fifteen minute interactive read alouds.  The lessons become a reference point for review and for intervention and/or reteaching lessons.

•      Model the strategies, literary elements, etc. that are in the plans for your unit of study.
•      Name the strategy, literary element, or text structure, you’ll be modeling.

Today, I’m going to show you how I make an inference.

•      Explain the strategy, how it helps readers, and what you will do to apply it.

An inference is meaning not stated in the text; it’s implied. Authors write texts expecting readers to infer. For this biography, Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull, I will use details to find unstated meanings.

•      Read a short part of the text out loud, and show how you apply the strategy.

I can infer Wilma’s family was poor. Her father worked several jobs to support Wilma and her nineteen brothers and sisters.

•      Involve students on the next day. Have them pair-share and provide text evidence to support one inference.
•      Collect students’ inferences on a T-Chart to show them how to organize their thinking in their notebooks. Write “Inference” on the left side and “Text Evidence” on the right side.
•      Repeat this process until you’ve modeled and students have practiced the strategies for the unit.

Closing Thoughts

Reading aloud books you love and want to hear again and again nurtures your need for wonderful stories and shows your students the meaning of  “I love to read.” In addition, make one of the read alouds interactive and instructional, so your students develop mental models about how to think and feel about books. Reading can’t be “caught.” It’s taught when students listen to and discuss stories before entering school. Once at school, they can observe how you and their peers interpret and respond to books. Then they self-select and read, read, read!

Check out Robb Communications to learn how Laura and Evan can help you meet your professional development goals!

Learn more ways to improve instructional reading in your school or division, Teaching Reading in Middle School, By Laura Robb

Is there a perfect or best way for students to select an independent reading book? I don’t think so. Since I’ve been teaching, the five-finger method is a strategy that teachers pass on to students. This technique asks a student to read 100 words and if there are five the student can’t say and/or understand, they look for a different book. I am not a fan of the five-finger method. Having difficulty with five words per one hundred words can be problematic for students with fluency issues. For me, there’s no one method of selecting a book that students use. It’s all about relationships that enable you to offer guidance that resonates with each child and meets that child’s needs.

I wish I could offer you one or two methods that always work. I can’t. My teaching head believes that for students to enjoy an independent reading book, it should be close to 100% accuracy. However, my students have taught me that exceptions to this belief abound! Take Marta, a third grade student who was instructionally on grade level. She checked out The Wizard of Oz on a visit to the library. Definitely, far above her instructional level, so I asked Marta, “Tell me why you want to read it.”

“I’ve seen the movie three times. I really want to read the book.”

“You certainly have a lot of background knowledge, “ I said. “Try it. Know that you might have to reread parts.” A happy Marta skipped to the computer to check out her book. Marta read The Wizard of Oz three times. “The second to get it [the story] better. The third ‘cause I could really read it.” Marta shows us that choosing books is more complicated than we thought. Here are five suggestions to guide you.

1.    Have students share what they want to read with you. Go to library period with your students and be there to suggest books, to hear why they “must” read a book. Invite students to run by you books they select from your classroom library.
2.    Offer alternatives. Avoid taking a book away from a student. Instead, suggest two alternatives just in case they want to switch. Abandoning a book should be a student’s choice.
3.    Listen to students’ reasons. Always ask “why” and listen. What the student says can support your suggestions. If you’re unsure, let the student try the book and explain that it’s okay to abandon it.
4.    Adopt book talking. Each month, invite students to book talk a favorite independent reading book. Spread these over two days. Just imagine, a class of twenty-five students will hear 250 book talks in ten months. They’ll discover many books that interest them—books they choose to read based on peer recommendation.
5.    Approve of abandoning a book. When I was in school, I had to finish a book, even if I disliked it. The idea was that I’d learn the discipline of completing what I had started. That doesn’t work. It creates anger and intense dislike—two emotions you don’t want student to associate with reading. When a student abandons a book, I like them to tell me why, only because I’m interested in what causes this decision.

Closing

Your advanced and proficient readers have learned, through experience, how to select a book to enjoy. However, English language learners and students reading below grade level benefit from your support. So say “good-bye” to strategies that don’t work for them, including the five-finger method. Instead, take the time to deepen your relationships with students by supporting their independent reading choices! With practice, they’ll figure out how to choose, but also know it’s okay if they recognize the book is not for them YET and find another.  One day, if the student still wants to read it, he or she will.

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School

Recently I asked Laura to share some reading teacher wisdom on a question I often hear. When students choose books they want to read, is that enough to ensure they become lifetime readers?

Enjoy Laura’s response.

I view that as the first step in their journey. Choice means the book interests the student. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that students have selected a book they can actually read. Choice is a start—albeit an excellent start. But students need more than choice if they are going to want to read during free time at school and at home.  Transforming students who avoid reading, who fake read, has to do with head and heart!

When a book affects a student’s head and heart, a metamorphosis can occur. The book might change the reader’s thinking about a topic. The story might raise awareness of new feelings about a situation, a character, or person. A book has the power to transform the reader by heightening self-awareness.

During independent reading in an eighth-grade class, I heard a student sob.I looked up from the conference I was having.  Then Kira shouted, “You can’t do that! You just hurt Gilly so much.” Kira was reacting to Courtney, Gilly’s mother, returning to San Francisco and not staying with Gilly. That hit Kira in the gut. Her best friend’s mom had recently left. At that moment, I knew I couldn’t continue the conference. Kira needed me. I had to be there for her. Gently, I told Ben we would finish our conference later, and he could find a comfortable place to read. I bent down next to Kira and asked if she wanted to talk. She nodded and followed me out the door. Tears poured down her cheeks. “I felt so bad for Gilly,” she said. “I know why she never lasts at a foster home. She wants her mom.”

Like Kira, we want readers to feel the story, live life as if they are the character or person and leave the text changed.  So, the big question is, What can teachers do to make reading a transforming experience for students?  To help students experience the emotional and/or intellectual changeover that reading can bring about, teachers need to set aside time for students to read at school. Try reserving 20 to 30 minutes of independent reading time two to three times a week. When students read at school, they come to see how much their teacher values reading, and the habit can eventually become a treasured experience. In addition, include the experiences that follow–I can’t say enough how important each one is.

Put Books at the Center. Read aloud every day from books you love, you enjoy. Your passion for the book will spill over to your students. Cry. Laugh. Express your anger. This shows students the deep feelings books can arouse, and you give them the right to have similar feelings when they read. Encourage students to share books by book talking in class or through an online blog. Show students a book you’re currently reading and tell them why it’s compelling.

Provide time for students to sit back and reflect. Think about the time you closed a book and could hardly breathe. You needed time to relive some parts, to reread some pages, and just think about a character and what happened. This reflection is a key part of bonding students to books and reading. The text lingers, and the desire to keep what has happened in our minds stirs the enjoyment and pleasure readers feel. Reflection supports reading far more than answering ten questions or writing a summary.  

Make reading social. Students, like you and me, don’t want to answer ten questions about a book or write chapter summaries. They want to talk, to share parts that touched their hearts, to tell a classmate why he or she “must read the book.” The benefits of putting book talks online is that students can return to and reread posts that reveal what their classmates are reading. They can pose questions, write comments, and recommend other books about a similar topic, genre, or by a favorite author.  Encourage student-led discussions about books with a partner or small group.

Become a coach and a cheerleader. Coach reluctant readers by showing them how to find books they can read and want to read, who have difficulty decoding, or making meaning by connecting a text to their experiences. But, also make sure you’re their cheerleader, pointing out progress in a conversation, or even better, in a handwritten note that they can reread.

Suggest books to them, but always respect their choices.

Closing Reflection

When choice works in concert with the four elements, there’s a solid chance that the book will affect students’ minds and hearts. The hope is that students will want to revisit these thoughts and feelings and choose a new book.  We teachers need to find ways to help students experience reading as a transformational experience.

Enjoy this great book by Laura: Differentiating Reading Instruction: How to Teach Reading to Meet the Needs of Each Student

Dear Teachers,

The weeks leading up to the opening of school are my favorite.  I’d spend hours in my classroom adding new books and magazines to the library. I’d stack readers’ notebooks on shelves and place students’ writing folders in plastic crates. I’d meet new teachers and chat with friends.

Each year, before students arrived, I’d reflect on the past year and challenge myself to make changes that supported students.  During the first two weeks of school, when I spent time getting to know students and establishing workshop routines, I would share my reflections with them. I wanted them to weigh in on these changes, suggest ways to improve them and offer new ideas.

One year I told eighth-grade students that I wanted to set up a quiet place where students could read and work undisturbed; a corner space for collaboration; a table for student-to-student conferences. When I shared my ideas, they liked them, but they suggested something I hadn’t thought of—an idea that showed me the importance of collecting feedback from students. They encouraged me to keep the quiet place, but to be open to changing the setup of the room based on what they were doing.  With their help, I shifted from a static classroom to one that changed based on what students were doing.

As you start the school year, I invite you to consider whether your classroom reflects how students learn. You might think about shifts in room arrangement, the kinds of feedback you offer students, and they, in turn, offer you. In addition, consider inviting students to create guidelines for independent and group work. Shifts are challenging, but with the support of your principal and students, you can initiate changes that positively impact students’ learning.  I encourage you to embrace change and develop a student-centered approach to learning.

Wishing you an exciting and productive school year!

Laura