The last few years I’ve been on a mission to make independent reading a treasured part of my classroom community. I am routinely told by a group of students at the beginning of the year that, “Reading is just not my thing,” or that, “Reading is sooooo boring!” and my response usually goes something like this, “It sounds like you haven’t had great experiences with reading,” or “There are some books that are pretty boring to me, too, so I’ll try to help you find one that isn’t boring for you.” Does that sound familiar to you?
And here is the thing: I know that I won’t win over every student to love reading as much as I do, but I have found there a few ways to bring along most of my students to enjoy reading in middle school.
Talk about books regularly
If I think about how I find out about new books to read it is mostly from talking to others about books.
So I use that same method with my students. I share books with students 2-3 times a week, spending about 5 minutes sharing about the book. Sometimes I share a book trailer, sometimes I read the first chapter, and other times I just talk about what is amazing about the book! I also use book talk guides to remind myself about a book I read in the past so that I can accurately talk about it.
I always talk about books in my classroom library or our school library so students can access the book and I also let them know if there is a free way for them to get the e-book or audiobook.
Prioritize reading every day in class
Our students will value what we value so I make sure to give time to independent reading every day in class. There are times it doesn’t fit into our lesson, but my students know and expect to read in class, especially when we are in a reading unit.
A couple of ways I make this work:
- When we are in a writing unit, independent reading is my bell ringer.
- Students have a lot of choice in their books within our reading units. I’ll use a shorter mentor text to teach grade level standards and then students will practice within their choice books. Often I narrow the choice to a genre or type of text, but I make sure to offer many options and plan for at least two independent reading units in which they have total choice in text.
- I teach short mini lessons to give students more time everyday to read and demonstrate understanding.
Conference with students
While students are reading every day I am conferencing with students. They tell me about their reading and what they are thinking about. This is an easy way to hold students accountable because they know I will be talking to them sometime within a week. I use this time to differentiate instruction and teach students something quick to push their thinking. But mostly our conversations are about what they are enjoying about a book and if they aren’t enjoying it, why that might be. Then we can find new books together.
