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Immersion Surround students with books of all kinds and give them the opportunity to read them EVERY DAY. Even if this is just a short ten minutes, that is fifty minutes of dedicated reading time at the end of every week they wouldn’t have had otherwise. You can’t expect to make progress if you don’t provide the regular, dedicated time for reading. | Demonstrations & Expectations Model for students the behaviors, strategies, and outcomes proficient readers achieve and use. Use student models and ask them to work with you to create rubrics. I say this a lot, but students cannot hit a target they cannot see and they don’t care much about achieving when they have no ownership. | Responsibility Give students choice in what they read. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be nudged in the right direction, but it does mean that they should feel they have the responsibility to choose. With that, however, comes commitment; set clear goals with them for pages read or growth. |
Immersion
Surround students with books of all kinds and give them the opportunity to read them EVERY DAY. Even if this is just a short ten minutes, that is fifty minutes of dedicated reading time at the end of every week they wouldn’t have had otherwise. You can’t expect to make progress if you don’t provide the regular, dedicated time for reading.
Demonstrations & Expectations
Model for students the behaviors, strategies, and outcomes proficient readers achieve and use. Use student models and ask them to work with you to create rubrics. I say this a lot, but students cannot hit a target they cannot see and they don’t care much about achieving when they have no ownership.
Responsibility
Give students choice in what they read. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be nudged in the right direction, but it does mean that they should feel they have the responsibility to choose. With that, however, comes commitment; set clear goals with them for pages read or growth.
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Employment Provide time for students to practice applying strategies and techniques with various types of texts. The brain is a muscle, too; it needs repeated exercise to hone skills. | Approximations & Response Recognize and congratulate students for what they do well, very specifically, and often. Students need to feel successful, but they can smell a fake a mile away. Realistic, individualized goal setting will help with this. Also, confer with students regularly and give specific, non-threatening feedback. If you don’t take the time to confer, you might as well skip independent reading altogether. This is how you will know where students are. #JustDoIt | Engagement Reading must have personal value to students, be anxiety-free, modeled by someone they respect and value, and students must see themselves as capable (so finding the right book is essential). |
Employment
Provide time for students to practice applying strategies and techniques with various types of texts. The brain is a muscle, too; it needs repeated exercise to hone skills.
Approximations & Response
Recognize and congratulate students for what they do well, very specifically, and often. Students need to feel successful, but they can smell a fake a mile away. Realistic, individualized goal setting will help with this. Also, confer with students regularly and give specific, non-threatening feedback. If you don’t take the time to confer, you might as well skip independent reading altogether. This is how you will know where students are. #JustDoIt
Engagement
Reading must have personal value to students, be anxiety-free, modeled by someone they respect and value, and students must see themselves as capable (so finding the right book is essential).
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Book Talks These are an easy way for students to share about their books without giving a formal presentation. For fluency practice, require a short passage from the book as part of the talk. This way, students choose and they can practice ahead of time to gain confidence. The purpose of these is to sell the book to peers, also, so it’s a perfect time to discuss intonation, emphasis, and pacing in oral reading. | Peer Reading Pair students (or give them choice if this works with the group) and provide time for read-aloud of a shared text. This might be a class novel, literature circle selections, or short text intentionally chosen by you for a particular class focus, like poetry, nonfiction, or a short story. | Podcasts of Audio Books For shared class texts, check out podcasts and audio book versions to play for students while they follow along for a short time. This will provide the fluent model reader, but the pressure is taken off you and the students for a bit. Serial Podcasts are great for this, especially to evaluate tone, purpose, bias, and rhetoric. |
Book Talks
These are an easy way for students to share about their books without giving a formal presentation. For fluency practice, require a short passage from the book as part of the talk. This way, students choose and they can practice ahead of time to gain confidence. The purpose of these is to sell the book to peers, also, so it’s a perfect time to discuss intonation, emphasis, and pacing in oral reading.
Peer Reading
Pair students (or give them choice if this works with the group) and provide time for read-aloud of a shared text. This might be a class novel, literature circle selections, or short text intentionally chosen by you for a particular class focus, like poetry, nonfiction, or a short story.
Podcasts of Audio Books
For shared class texts, check out podcasts and audio book versions to play for students while they follow along for a short time. This will provide the fluent model reader, but the pressure is taken off you and the students for a bit. Serial Podcasts are great for this, especially to evaluate tone, purpose, bias, and rhetoric.
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Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm School’s out for summer, and Penny and her cousin Frankie have big plans to eat lots of butter pecan ice cream, swim at the local pool, and cheer on their favorite baseball team—the Brooklyn Dodgers! But sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Penny’s mom doesn’t want her to swim because she’s afraid Penny will get polio. Frankie is constantly getting into trouble, and Penny feels caught between the two sides of her family. But even if the summer doesn’t exactly start as planned . . . things can work out in the most unexpected ways! Check out Penny from Heaven and Jennifer L. Holm. She also writes the Baby Mouse series, which kids LOVE! | The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller Walter Lavender Jr. is a master of finding. A wearer of high-tops. A maker of croissants. A son keeping vigil, twelve years counting. But he wouldn’t be able to tell you. Silenced by his motor speech disorder, Walter’s life gets lonely. Fortunately, he has The Lavenders—his mother’s enchanted dessert shop, where marzipan dragons breathe actual fire. He also has a knack for tracking down any missing thing—except for his lost father. Readers who love Wonder will not be able to put this one down. Check out The Luster of Lost Things and Sophie Chen Keller @imsophieckeller. | As You Wish by Chelsea SedotiIn the sandy Mojave Desert, Madison is a small town on the road between nothing and nowhere. But Eldon wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, because in Madison, everyone gets one wish—and that wish always comes true.Some people wish for money, some people wish for love, but Eldon has seen how wishes have broken the people around him. Check out As You Wish and Chelsea Sedoti @chelseasedoti. It releases in hardcover 1/2/2018 and would make the perfect gift for a young adult! |
Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm
School’s out for summer, and Penny and her cousin Frankie have big plans to eat lots of butter pecan ice cream, swim at the local pool, and cheer on their favorite baseball team—the Brooklyn Dodgers! But sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Penny’s mom doesn’t want her to swim because she’s afraid Penny will get polio. Frankie is constantly getting into trouble, and Penny feels caught between the two sides of her family. But even if the summer doesn’t exactly start as planned . . . things can work out in the most unexpected ways! Check out Penny from Heaven and Jennifer L. Holm. She also writes the Baby Mouse series, which kids LOVE!
The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller
Walter Lavender Jr. is a master of finding. A wearer of high-tops. A maker of croissants. A son keeping vigil, twelve years counting. But he wouldn’t be able to tell you. Silenced by his motor speech disorder, Walter’s life gets lonely. Fortunately, he has The Lavenders—his mother’s enchanted dessert shop, where marzipan dragons breathe actual fire. He also has a knack for tracking down any missing thing—except for his lost father. Readers who love Wonder will not be able to put this one down. Check out The Luster of Lost Things and Sophie Chen Keller @imsophieckeller.
As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti
In the sandy Mojave Desert, Madison is a small town on the road between nothing and nowhere. But Eldon wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, because in Madison, everyone gets one wish—and that wish always comes true.Some people wish for money, some people wish for love, but Eldon has seen how wishes have broken the people around him. Check out As You Wish and Chelsea Sedoti @chelseasedoti. It releases in hardcover 1/2/2018 and would make the perfect gift for a young adult!
Kristie Hofelich Ennis, NBCT
In an effort to systematically study relevant research and stay connected to the teachers I greatly respect and with whom I have worked for years to successfully implement independent reading, this newsletter came about. It will offer research and practical ideas for quick implementation and may prompt further discussion or study with your colleagues. I hope you'll find it useful and thought-provoking; I also hope you will stay in touch if you implement any of the ideas with your students. They are, after all, why I do what I do!