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In the classroom. Literacy leader thinks this is good. What do you think

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A great blog with ideas to engage readers in the classroom

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My last class of the day had just dismissed, the last student shuffling out of my room. I grabbed a stack of paperwork I needed to give the school bookkeeper and made my way to the office. Passing through the media center, I turned my attention to a group of students who were congregated in...

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5 strategies for engaging reluctant reader

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5 strategies for engaging reluctant reader

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A reluctant reader is, quite simply, any student who does not show an interest in reading. These students may actively resist reading, mask their dislike by clowning around or misbehaving when asked to read, become easily frustrated during reading, or need to be coaxed into picking up a book. Identifying reluctant readers is the first step in better engaging these students as readers. But according to the Lexile® Framework for Reading, it is important to note that reluctant readers are not necessarily the same as struggling readers. Although their reading abilities may vary, these young people have trouble connecting with books independently.
Why are these readers reluctant?
Before educators can try to help a reluctant reader become more engaged in reading, they need to understand why the student is reluctant to read. A student's reluctance could have many root causes: Are they struggling with particular reading skills? Are they disinterested in what they are reading? Are there tasks associated with reading that the student is resisting? An effective and easy place to start is observation. For example,, an educator might notice that the student begins a reading task but quickly becomes frustrated. This student could be reading above their reading level. Does the student seem uncomfortable when asked to read out loud or participate in a discussion? This student may be self-conscious and reluctant to read because they feel unsuccessful or pressured to read at an uncomfortable pace or level.

If observing the reluctant reader does not help to unravel the why, try asking the student directly. Although students aren't always able to verbalize why they don't like reading, they can sometimes be quite straightforward. Even if the student can't articulate the cause of their reluctance, speaking candidly with them can help to demystify the issue.

Because each student is unique, it may require trial and error to find an appropriate approach to engage a reluctant reader. More likely, though, it will take a combination of strategies.
The importance of intrinsic motivation
Just as knowing why a student is reluctant to read is important, so is knowing how they are motivated to read. Intrinsically motivated readers read because it gives them enjoyment or satisfaction in some way. Extrinsically motivated readers are driven by some outside pressure, such as a promised reward or the fear of a failing grade. Studies show a positive correlation between intrinsically motivated readers and reading achievement across grade levels, and by high school, extrinsic motivations for reading are actually negatively correlated to reading achievement. When creating or selecting strategies for reluctant readers, it is important to keep this in mind. We not only need to motivate reluctant students to read, we need to take the more difficult path of helping them become intrinsically motivated to do so.

Here are five actionable strategies for helping students cultivate their intrinsic motivation.

In the classroom, reading often comes with "work." For example, students might be asked to annotate the book as they read, keep a daily reading journal, fill out graphic organizers, or take a test on the reading material. While these activities absolutely have their place in literacy education, it isn't difficult to see how they may contribute to a student's reluctance to read. Sometimes, students just need to read for fun. Allowing independent reading time with no strings attached can motivate reluctant readers by helping to move reading from "work" to "fun."

One powerful way to engage reluctant readers is to allow them a choice of what to read, thereby giving them ownership of their own learning. Choice also helps to motivate students by allowing them to select reading material on topics that are of interest to them and in formats with which they feel comfortable. Giving students a choice of reading materials can also validate literacy activities in which they participate outside of the classroom. Students may not make the connection between the basketball blog they devour at home each night, the how-to book they are using to fix their bike, and the texts they are learning to read in school. Understanding that each is a valid form of literacy can be a revelation to students.

However, allowing students a choice of reading material does not necessarily mean taking them to the library and letting them loose, as they need scaffolding to help them select appropriate texts. For example, independent reading is perhaps the easiest way to give students free choice, but while allowing reluctant readers to choose their own text can help them to be more engaged, the opposite effect will be achieved if they become frustrated because the text they selected is too difficult. To this end, students need to be given the tools to select a "just right" book. Like any other skill, they can practice strategies for selecting appropriate texts, and should be allowed to make mistakes. If they select a book that turns out to not be "just right" after all, they should be empowered to put that text down and select another, even if they are already halfway through it.

Often-particularly when reading in a subject area or within a theme-students need to be given additional parameters within which they can choose their text. The key is for these parameters to allow for texts that both meet the educator's instructional goals and allow the student meaningful choice. One way this can be achieved is to allow students to choose from within a set of educator-selected texts. To be effective, this set of texts needs to be comprehensive in type of material, reading level, and topic, which is no small task! For example, suppose students are studying the Holocaust. The educator can provide a number of preselected texts on this topic, ranging from fictional works to informational texts. This is a topic large enough to encompass multiple angles, so the educator could include books focusing on military actions, the rise of Hitler, and even the "degenerative" art forbidden by the Nazi regime. The point is to give students as wide a selection as possible within the topic. The door should always be left open for students to pitch a different text, as well, as long as it is appropriate and relevant.

Socializing and interacting with peers is extremely important to students at any grade level, and we can bring the power of social activities into the literacy classroom. Engage reluctant readers by creating a space where literacy is a communal activity and students feel they belong to that community. One way to do this is through small student-led discussion groups. Allowing students to lead these groups themselves is key, as studies have shown that student-led discussion groups result in deeper, more elaborate discussions than those led by a teacher. Providing the opportunity for students to make meaning of a text with their peers can also help reduce misconceptions about the text and expand their perceptions of what they read. Grouping student at varying reading levels can have an added value, as well: Struggling readers benefit from the insights and perspectives of more advanced readers, while advanced readers benefit from clarifying and explaining their own reading strategies to their peers. As with any new activity, it is important to model these discussion groups with students before leaving them on their own. Literature Circles (Harvey Daniels; Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom, 1994) offer a way to formalize roles and responsibilities within a student-led discussion group.

Use Reader's Theater as an authentic repeated reading strategy

The repeated readings method is a well-known strategy for increasing reading fluency and comprehension. This strategy not only helps the student read a particular text more fluently and comprehend it better, it has also been shown to increase fluency and comprehension in new passages across all grade levels. The problem with rereading the same passage over and over is that this can become boring and may increase students' reluctance to read. Whileany educators introduce competition (either students against themselves or each other) as an extrinsic motivator, Reader's Theater can offer a more authentic reason for students to reread texts.

Reader's Theater allows students to dramatize a book or story they have read. In Reader's Theater, students read aloud, rather than memorize short scripts based on a book. Reader's Theater is by nature a cooperative, social activity, as students work together to select, rehearse, and perform their piece. Multiple readings of the text are inherent in the activity as students rehearse and perform, and Reader's Theater can also make reading more palatable for reluctant readers, since a script is broken up into smaller chunks. Reader's Theater also offers an easy outlet for differentiation, as students may self-select parts they are comfortable reading, or the teacher may assign parts based on reading ability.

Sometimes, students are reluctant to read simply because it is difficult for them to sit quietly-but reading doesn't have to be a passive activity. Consider letting students walk around as they read (as long as they don't disturb other students), provide some pillows, a place to stretch out, and some standing desks for those who don't want to sit. In addition, allow students to quietly share fun or interesting things from their reading with each other. Reading can and should be a gateway to additional exploration, and this can be fostered by tying hands-on explorations with reading. Once you establish this practice, students will likely take over some of the planning: A student reading Skellig by David Almond might ask to dissect an owl pellet, while a learner reading about Disney World may want to make a model roller coaster.

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5 Strategies for Engaging Reluctant Readers

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A reluctant reader is, quite simply, any student who does not show an interest in reading. These students may actively resist reading, mask their dislike by clowning around or misbehaving when asked to read, become easily frustrated during reading, or need to be coaxed into picking up a book.

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Knowing and reading. What can we do to make sure kids know enough to comprehend?

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Knowing and reading. What can we do to make sure kids know enough to comprehend?

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Last week, I was at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, helping roll out the new National Assessment scores (NAEP). I was on a panel with Marilyn Adams, Ian Rowe, Sue Pimentel, and Daniel Willingham. Yet again, our kids made few advances in reading.

Dan, when asked what could be done to break out of these doldrums, explained the importance increasing what our kids know about the world. summarized his point: "whether or not readers understand a text depends far more on how much background knowledge and vocabulary they have relating to the topic than on how much they've practiced comprehension skills."

Research has long shown the importance of knowledge in comprehension. If a reader knows much about a topic, his/her reading comprehension rises.

Studies of what American kids (and adults) know about science, geography, economics, technology, and history suggest that Professor Willingham has a point. Our kids simply don't know enough. (There are great inequities in knowledge distribution, just as there is great inequality in reading attainment.)

Observations of preschool and primary grade classrooms reveal a rather limited amount of attention to building world knowledge in these early years.

No one has argued more strenuously than I for devoting scads of time to reading and writing instruction. But even I agree that content knowledge is important in reading and that time is also needed to develop such knowledge. Unfortunately, time for reading instruction all too often comes at the expense of content learning.

What can be done to turn this around? Here are 10 suggestions. I wonder which ones will be most controversial in your schools.

1. Make sure reading texts present high-quality content (including excellent literature, as well as informational texts that explore our natural and social worlds).

It is often asserted that, "It doesn't matter what they read, just that they read."

Poppycock!

As a student, father, grandparent, citizen, scientist, member of the human race... I couldn't disagree more. It's like claiming, "It doesn't matter what they eat, just that they eat."

Just as a steady diet of potato chips, ice cream, and soda pop is not nutritious (God knows I've tried it), reading forgettable drivel is nothing but empty calories. Nothing wrong with the occasional guilty pleasure, but for heaven's sake it matters what our kids read.

Whether you teach from a textbook (core program) or an assembly of little books from the bookroom it is critical that kids read literature worth knowing, along with substantive content drawn from the sciences, the arts, social studies, and so on.

Quality and content considerations are important, too, when one is stocking a classroom library.

Teaching kids to read with texts rich in content distracts from reading nary a jot, but offers kids a chance to explore spiders, forensic science, or how and why different languages punctuate or capitalize.
2. Set content learning goals along with the reading goals for reading lessons.
No matter how rich the texts may be, they won't much increase knowledge-unless teachers emphasize the content.

Decades ago the late Michael Pressley used to fume over the wrongheadedness of so much reading strategy instruction. For those who don't know, Michael was a grand supporter of strategy teaching. But, for him, such teaching had to provide more than strategy practice. A strategy lesson wasn't sound unless the kids were learning the content of the texts that the strategies were practiced upon.

I've long argued that core reading programs should pose both reading objectives (e.g., students will learn to identify a main idea) and content ones (e.g., how does soap make you clean, what role does loyalty play in human relations).
3. Read multiple texts on a topic.
Make sure your kids learn from what they read-even during the reading class.

I'm a proponent of having students (second-grade readers and up) reading more complex-and, yes, even more difficult-texts. To make that work, teachers need to scaffold kids' reading.

One effective scaffold is to have kids reading multiple texts on a single topic. As they learn information from one text, that can serve as a useful support for making sense of another.
4. Include content texts in your read aloud work.
There are wonderful schemes out there for creating text and media sets that can provide this kind of support, for integrating science and literacy through multiple texts, and for project-based learning.

Such approaches build both reading ability and world knowledge.

Let's leave no rock unturned.
5. Break the reading block.
Even if teachers buy what I'm saying about presenting richer content within reading texts, this idea seems to evaporate if we are talking about teacher read alouds or kids' oral reading fluency practice.

But these activities provide worthwhile content learning opportunities, too-even with young children.

Teachers often go out of their way to have kids practice oral reading fluency with poetry. But there is no reason why this can't be done well with a social studies or math book--I've seen big benefits from such practice.

Many schools have a set "reading block." They've scheduled a specific 90-minutes when teachers must teach reading. God forbid if the reading gets out.

I'm not a big supporter of reading blocks (a subject for another time), but every good designer learns there is art in "breaking the border." The best teachers find ways of taking reading over the reading block border.

Most reading skills can be taught as well with a science book as with the assortment of texts relegated to the reading block.
6. Try not to pull kids out of science, social studies, or the arts for interventions.
Sadly, many schools, in an effort to enhance reading, curtail the arts and sciences.

Instead of dropping your music program or elbowing social studies out of the curriculum, it makes more sense to bring text into those subjects. Not for the kind of round robin reading that so often is reading's "place" in such classes (no wonder they get dropped), but for real reading.

Ask yourself, if I want kids to know about timbre in music, how can text best support this learning? What should kids read in addition to the ear training I'm going to provide? How should they read those texts? (A paragraph at a time aloud in a group of 25? I don't think so).

The time devoted to learning how to read about timbre should count as much as the time used to read a story about a boy who looks like a mouse-just because we go out of our way to ask "inferencing" questions about one of these texts doesn't distinguish.
7. When it is necessary to pull kids out of content courses for reading interventions (and sometimes it is), build that content into the IEP.
If you read this recommendation, be sure to read the one that follows, too.

When kids are falling behind in reading we often pull them out of class for extra tuition in reading. Yep, RtI intervention time.

Some schools protect content teaching by expanding the reading block to include intervention time, which means that Johnny or Janey get their extra phonics then, rather than instead of social studies. Some clever interventionists even rotate their instructional times so that kids don't always lose out on the same content (limiting the damage). My favorite schools have even found ways to provide interventions beyond school days and school years, so that the subject content can be protected--hooray.
8. Write about content. 9. Establish content clubs-even in elementary schools.
I get it. School days are complicated, and reading is important. If we let kids fall back in reading they will eventually lose out in science, history, and math anyway. In many situations there is no other way than to pull kids out of those knowledge building classes.

Nevertheless, you need to do whatever you can to protect content instruction. It matters.

I rarely see an IEP (or more informal learning plan) that provides any intention of replacing the content learning that the intervention is going to countermand.
10. Use technology to break the borders of content classes.
Let's say you have a struggling reader whose intervention is going to take the place of his social studies class.

What about the social studies content? Can any of the reading work be done with the social studies book (in class or in the intervention)? Can/will mom or dad help? Do we have any afterschool options there? What can be done with our audio and video resources to sneak this content back into this student's learning?

Let's be as diligent about that part of the problem as we are about the reading deficit.

Remember recommendations 2 and 4? Writing, too, belongs in content area classes. Having kids write about content that they have read about increases content learning. 'Nuf said.

High school academic clubs are common: French club, Red Cross, United Nations, Debate, etc. Those clubs give kids a great chance for increasing knowledge beyond the school day. (Such clubs are most available to our most advantaged and knowledgeable students and are less prevalent in economically depressed communities; something I hope foundations and community groups will try to address.)

Wouldn't it be great to have such clubs in the elementary schools, too?

In fact, some elementary schools do this, something I recently learned from Tyler, my kindergarten grandson. He is a proud member of the science club and is learning all kinds of cool things about science in this multi-age club (getting to work with the older kids is a real attraction for Tyler).

Again, look for opportunities for expanding kids' academic knowledge.

I'm not a tech geek, but I'm a big fan of Catlin Tucker... and she manages to be very techy without being geeky at all. Just as I put in a pitch for reading within content classes, she argues the importance of discussion in learning content.

She's not wrong, but where will all this reading and discussion time come from?

One solution is to use tech platforms like Schoology to expand class discussions about content beyond the classroom. Caitlin provides some sage advice on how to blend online and in-class content discussions.

Again, an example of expanding the opportunity to build knowledge-without undermining reading instruction at all.

Good readers know a lot about their world. Let's not let reading instruction be the enemy of knowledge.

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Last week, I was at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, helping roll out the new National Assessment scores (NAEP). I was on a panel with Marilyn Adams, Ian Rowe, Sue Pimentel, and Daniel Willingham. Yet again, our kids made few advances in reading.