#teacherstips

A READING SPECIALIST AND DYSLEXIA THERAPIST'S TAKE ON WHY KIDS STOP READING

A Guest Blog by Cheryl King

    After 13 years working with mostly struggling readers in some capacity, I have learned and used a plethora of before-, during-, and after-reading strategies, activities, and lessons. And I’m absolutely certain that at least some of them have made an impact on my students.

           At this very moment, there must be a group of former students sitting around a reading circle and saying, “Hey, remember when Mrs. King taught us ‘Say Something’?” (Hat tip Kylene Beers, whose literacy expertise has kept my toolbox filled to the brim with fantastic resources.) Or there’s a young lady in a college writing course thinking, “Mrs. King was so right when she told us to read like a writer and write like a reader.” (I honestly can’t remember where I first learned this, but it has spread like wildfire in the world of literacy education.) And most definitely, somewhere there are young men who years ago claimed to be nonreaders and are now saying, “Man, I’m so glad Mrs. King had us do the ‘Tea Party’ before-reading strategy and then taught us Notice & Note.” (Again, hat tip Kylene Beers, and add in Bob Probst.)

           No doubt these strategies, plus dozens more, are important when teaching struggling readers, but it’s unlikely any of those fantasy conversations are actually taking place. However, there is something else that may truly make a difference in young readers’ (and nonreaders’) lives. One of the common threads I’ve found as a literacy educator working in public schools is that around sixth grade, many students stop reading for pleasure. Even my eldest son, who grew up with his nose in a book and has never struggled with reading, dropped off of the Reading Is Fun bandwagon between sixth and seventh grade. When pressed for reasons, he always answered that school took the fun out of reading. With standardized reading passages and forced analyzing a story to death, it’s no wonder. But if that’s happening to strong readers, imagine the plummeting interest in pleasure reading of not-so-strong readers.

           With this knowledge, one of my topmost goals each year in the classroom was to help bring back the love of reading for middle-school-aged kids. I studied and listened to and read such greats as Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher, I researched and learned and tried so many methods to achieving this goal, and I’d like to share three ideas:

1. Book talks and read-alouds

There is almost nothing that gets kids as excited about a book as when their teacher (or librarian or any family member) talks it up. Read an excerpt from your favorite part and tell them why you love it. Whenever I did this in the classroom, students were lined up to check out the book. And don’t be fooled – even teenagers enjoy being read to, though they may deny it. One of my favorite trends from the past few years is Classroom-Book-A-Day, which builds community in the classroom with a pleasure reading of a picture book each day.

       2. Make it fun

Anything is better for kids if you turn it into a game. There is a reading game I found online called Bring Your Own Book. Everyone grabs a book, and you draw a card and read it out loud. The card may say something like, “A line from a teenager’s diary” or “A sentence in a fortune cookie,” and everyone flips through their book and skims for something that fits. They now have additional versions of the game, including a Scholastic one for younger readers.

      3. Exposure, exposure, exposure It’s important to give kids exposure to a wide variety of reading material, from all genres of fiction to graphic novels to informational texts. One of the ways I loved to do this was to have a “Book Tasting.” I set up my classroom like a restaurant, and on the menu were collections of books of all types and reading levels. Kids got a few minutes at each table to sample the selections and write down their thoughts. In the end they had a bookmark with their top choices to refer to for independent reading time or library visits.

There are myriad other ways to get kids excited about reading, but these have been the biggest hits for me. Now maybe my former students will pick up my debut novel, Sitting on Top of the World, read it, enjoy it, and say, “Hey, remember when Mrs. King taught us that cool annotation strategy?”

Sitting on Top of the World releases June 15 and is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Check out her author website, Cheryl King Writes Things and her TeachersPayTeachers!