Every teacher's challenge = getting kids to read, read well, and read often. ON THEIR OWN.
The solution = read The Book Whisperer and then start a classroom book club of your own!!! The Book Whisperer has seriously become my "reading teacher's Bible" and is the number one book I have recommended to colleagues and teacher friends time and time again. Seriously, read it, and then revisit it every year!!!
My experience...
Book reports, monthly reading calendars, reading incentive programs...all ever present and designed to encourage (or politely require) reading at home, something every teacher works hard to promote as we all know this habit is critical to our students' success. Throughout my career I have s.t.r.u.g.g.l.e.d. with these tasks and shied away from them. I want my students to read at home everyday, but I want them to WANT to read everyday...not just do it because they have to record minutes or complete a project. And, to be brutally honest, I hate grading book reports when the involvement of parents can be so drastically different and apparent.
Once again I find myself walking that fine line. What can I "require" to get my students to want to read, read often, and openly share about what they are reading in order to gain evidence of their thinking and growth as a reader so that I know they are applying everything we learn about in class? My students this year do love to read already. Their previous teachers and our librarian have done a fabulous job introducing them to a wide variety of literature and carefully, expertly, choosing read alouds they still rave about. My task is to craft an engaging, rigorous program that meets the challenge of Common Core while still fostering students who can't wait to crack open that crisp new hardcover, smooth fresh pages open, and settle into their favorite reading nook to hide from the "real world" for an indefinite period of time.
I believe that the key to being an effective teacher is being passionate about your teaching, the topics you are studying with your students, the activities you engage in, and learning in general. My students are engaged and excited because I'm engaged and excited. As I shared with a group of teachers this summer, it's not about getting students to do their work...it's getting them excited about their learning so that they want to do their work. This year one of my students told our special education teacher that he wanted to come to her room during social studies because he didn't like social studies. I laughed and told her that might change, because he hadn't had social studies with me yet. I didn't say that to be cocky, but I do absolutely love teaching social studies and incorporate project-based learning often, which students LOVE. Well, guess what Mrs. A. came to tell me today? "Mr. ___ just told me that he doesn't want to come to my room during social studies anymore because now he likes it!" LOL!
So why am I explaining this to you in a post about getting students to read? Because I haven't found many at-home reading projects or incentive programs that truly get kids to internalize a long-term LOVE of reading so that they continue reading even after they've met their goal or finished the program. I want my students to collect a pile of books to curl up with, love making trips to Barnes & Noble (or whatever bookstore is nearby), and race to get to class because they can't wait to see what we are reading next. I want them to run up to me exclaiming that I just have to read the book they finished last night, or turn to a friend in the library as they are all browsing around to recommend title after title. I want them to be well read with quality literature. Not a short order by any means, nor an easy problem to solve since I've been mulling over it for 12 years and teachers and educational (and non-educational) companies have spent thousands of dollars year after year encouraging kids to read.
My solution...begin a book club. Not in the style of most adult book clubs, though, since having everyone reading the same book whether they love it or not defeats my purpose. My book club is quite simple. Eliminate all the recording of minutes or pages read everyday and just read! How many adults that you know check the clock or write down the page they start on so that they know exactly how much they've done? None! Why? They just want to relax and get lost in their book. If we are investing our time with students helping them make good reading choices, validating their responses and thinking, and maintaining on-going conversations about books, then many students will grab book after book without any incentive or prodding from us.
But how will I know they've read, then, you ask? By exposing students to a variety of genres through book talks, encouraging self-selected reading from each, introducing meaningful reading responses and conversations, introducing them to a TBR (to be read) List, challenging them o set a goal for the year (my suggestion is the 40 Book Challenge), AND...the best part...holding monthly book club meetings to validate their thinking about their reading!!! Add a few adult volunteers, refreshments, and a special project or craft? Bam! That just sucked in the last disinterested, on-the-fence kiddo left debating whether or not they should join (did I mention the club is "optional?") How could we not pull in the perks of a book club?!
Since goals need to be tracked, my students need a place to take notes during mini-lessons, and they need a place to record their reading responses, we use a composition notebook to create a reading notebook during the first days of school each year. Our Page Turners Club handbook pages are glued in the front, our mini-lessons are recorded just behind, and they flip the notebook over to record responses from the back. The handbook is available in my TPT store (click here) in both full-page versions that can be copied and bound and also in interactive notebook size (composition notebook size) if you prefer to cut them down to see and glue in as needed. I've done both ways!
I'll leave you with a sneak peak of a few pages from my Page Turners Handbook. As this post has already become a novel, I'll post more later about Page Turners meetings...happy reading!
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