What advice would you give a person who wants to become better at doing something? I suspect practice shows up somewhere on your short list. To become better at most things in life, practice is imperative, and it is no different when someone learns to read.
Unfortunately, researchers have known since the eighties that the number of children reading for pleasure has been consistently declining. When I taught sixth grade, it was not unusual to work with students who had learned all the basic skills they needed to read, but because those students never practiced outside of the school day, their fluency scores were well below the level needed to achieve good comprehension.
Long gone are the days when teachers can assume extra reading practice will take place at home. Parents are busier than ever, and children have too many distractions once they leave our classrooms.
Once when I was teaching first grade, I sent home some reading practice sheets with one of my students, who was not making the kind of progress that her classmates were. I believed she just needed a bit more practice to catch up. I discussed the situation with her parents at conferences, and they agreed to spend some time reading with her each night.
A month later, the student continued to fall behind, so I asked her if she was practicing reading at home with her parents. The girl admitted that she was not. When I asked her why, she said that her parents worked until dinnertime, and after that they had to go do sports. Such is the reality of American family life!
What’s the solution? Give your students time to read books of their own choosing during class time!
Reason 1
Researchers have determined that the amount of the time spent reading independently is the best predictor of reading achievement. (Anderson, Wilson & Freddy, 1988) Basically the more you read, the better your reading test scores will be. That should come as no surprise.
I watched this happen with my own daughter, Victoria, when she was in fourth grade, and the first Harry Potter book was published. My daughter’s teacher started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to her class before I had ever even heard of it. Victoria insisted we buy the book when we visited the school book fair, so she could read ahead. Though Victoria started that school year as an average reader, by the end of the year, my daughter was in the 99th percentile in her reading scores. (Thank you, Mrs. P.B.) I started calling the surge in reading test scores the Harry Potter Effect when I started to see it happen repeatedly with my own students.
Reason 2
Research indicates that an important factor in developing reading for pleasure is choice. (Schrau et al, 1998; Clark and Phythein-Sense, 2008) And I think if we’re honest, the same can be said for adults. I personally couldn’t wait for my college coursework to end, so I had time to read books of my own choosing again!
I believe one of the reasons children today don’t become independent readers is they simply can’t find a book that really resonates with them once they move past picture books. Too many times children will start a new book, read several pages, and then give up on it. They simply don’t have the attention span children had in the past.
Luckily, we also know that reading for pleasure is strongly influenced by teachers’ relationships with their students. (Cremin et al, 2009) One of the most important jobs I had as a teacher was to get to know my students' interests and then make appropriate book recommendations based upon them.
Whenever possible, that recommendation would be the first book in a series. That’s because we also know that most accomplished readers got hooked on a book series at some point. Did that happen to you? For me, it was the Nancy Drew books.
An amazing thing happens if you let this recommendation process unfold, before long the students will begin making book recommendations to each other. I’ll never forget the time I was teaching sixth grade, and a boy I didn’t know was hovering outside my classroom door at the end of the day. I asked him if he needed any help. He told me he had heard from one of my students that I had a copy of a really good book, and he was wondering if he could borrow it. I think that’s the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like a drug dealer.
Reason 3
In a 2006 study, researchers suggested that people who read literary fiction score higher in empathy and understanding measures than people who only read nonfiction. (Oatley, 2006) Reading researcher and neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf explains it this way, “What we read, how we read, and why we read change how we think.” With only two-fifths of young people reading fiction outside of the classroom, there is plenty of room to increase those numbers. And who knows? Perhaps by doing so we can help create a more empathic world.
In today’s hectic world, educators need to provide our students with an opportunity to develop a love of reading. In fact, researchers now know that reading for enjoyment is more important for children’s educational success than the socio-economic status of their families. (OECD, 2002) If we are truly serious about trying to close the achievement gap in this country, we need to get children’s hands on books. And not just any books, books that they enjoy!
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