Monitored Reading Monitored Reading: A block of time set aside for students simply to read. The more students (of all ages) read, the more their reading skills improve and their vocabulary grows. Motivation and self-directed learning is critical to promote more reading by teenagers. “One way that motivation and engagement are instilled and maintained is to provide students with opportunities to select for themselves the materials they read and topics they research. One of the easiest ways to build some choice into the students’ school day is to incorporate independent reading time in which they can read whatever they choose. Yet this piece of the curriculum is often dropped after the primary grades.” Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy. Pilgreen’s (2001) meta-analysis of the factors associated with a successful SSR program identifi ed appealing texts as one element, along with the following: ■ Access to reading materials ■ A comfortable environment in which to read ■ Encouragement through discussion about reading ■ Staff training on principles of SSR ■ Non-accountability of students (i.e., no book reports or other formal assessments) ■ Follow-up activities through shared experiences ■ Distributed time to read each day, not just once a week Self-effi cacy plays an important role in the life of a reader who struggles. Many students arrive at the secondary level already possessing a belief that they are not good readers and a certainty that they will never become good readers. Years of failure, often formalized through in-grade retention, remediation, and permanent membership in the “low” reading group, have provided them with ample evidence for these conclusions, at least in their own minds. A challenge of middle and high school educators is to interrupt this cycle of thinking and to replace it with a series of carefully constructed successes. Stahl (1998) points out that “[p]art of teaching children with reading problems is convincing them that they can learn to read, in spite of their experience to the contrary” (p. 183). Two effective measures for accomplishing these goals include using texts that match students’ instructional levels and making use of their interests in order to provide authentic reasons to read (Margolis and McCabe, 2001). To achieve these ends, educators can look for ways to teach comprehension by using materials other than the traditional texts identifi ed for middle and high school students. categories developed by Kylene Beers (1996): motivated readers (“I love to read!”); dormant readers (“I would read, but just don’t have the time.”); uncommitted readers (“I think I might read sometime in the future.”); unmotivated readers (“I don’t like reading. I’m not going to enjoy it, so why bother.”). number these four phrases and put them on the board. ask students to write the number of the phrase that best describes their attitude towards reading Restrictions or Not? common problems during MR: sleeping; “fake reading” or staring into space with an open book; avoiding reading by searching for a book in the library, etc.; and working on other assignments. “The second thing that I learned from the survey was that many students wanted more rules to accompany SSR. Some students wrote that having a reading goal or knowing that participation would be graded would motivate them to use SSR time more productively. Although this went against my initial idea of “no pressure” reading, I thought that structure would be beneficial to some students. The unmotivated and uncommitted readers didn’t already see reading as something pleasurable and they needed a reason to “buy in.” With these students in mind, I developed a set of guidelines that highlighted the appropriate on-task behaviors and included a reading goal. The goal was to finish a minimum of one book per grading period. It was my hope that the unmotivated and uncommitted readers would read because they now knew they had to, but would eventually read because they found they wanted to.” Gretchen Dougherty Millersport High School Book Selection “advertising the book” No matter what a person ’ s reading preferences, selection proficiency matters. It is a significant life skill. Many people who are perceived—by teachers, by parents, and often by themselves—as poor or nonreaders are in fact simply poor choosers of reading material, a very different concern. Selection aids are in flux, like so much else about contemporary reading. In a time of rapid change, we need to make this issue visible and help students articulate their own needs and wishes as well as their own working strategies. It is an investment in their autonomy as readers that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. Advertising and Promotion Great Holiday or “New Year” activities: Seasonal celebration card to another student accompanied by a “gift wrapped” book from the classroom library (e.g., Dear Robyn, I chose this book as a gift for you. I thought you might like it because…) Journals and Letters Students can use a journal or letter format to express a more lengthy, in-depth response to text. Booklets, composition notebooks, diaries, or lined journal worksheets can be used for this purpose. Dated entries allow you to assess progress over time. look for ways to use technology to encourage reading. We had noticed that many students enjoyed being videotaped when presenting reports in the classroom; my colleague therefore suggested that we use this interest to our advantage by videotaping students as they gave their book reports. To implement our program, we asked for volunteers willing to be videotaped while reporting on a favorite book. A surprising number of students chose to participate, and several students asked permission to work with a partner. Students were directed to think about or to write up a short summary of a book, including reasons why they liked the book, and to note whether they would recommend the book to a friend. We questioned these students during the taping so that they could look directly at the camera while giving the answers they had prepared. This year we plan to start a club so that students can learn videotaping and video editing. Working with faculty advisors, these students will videotape student book reports and then edit them for the web. By engaging students in this process, we hope they will be motivated to enjoy both reading and technology. —JOANNE STREAMO, Middle School Librarian, Ravenscroft School, Raleigh, NC Some journal-writing may be more focused and in response to a teacher provided prompt. Journal prompts are typically multi-layered and more thought provoking than sentence prompts. The same journal prompt can be reused multiple times over the course of a text-reading. As responses to the same prompt change over time, comprehension progress is revealed. Alternatively, using varied prompts can reveal aspects that challenge individual readers. When you model response through journal prompts, be explicit about the format and aspects you want included. Sticky notes are a way to quickly track thinking about questions, connections, unknown words, predictions, and many other aspects of reading. Sticky notes allow a reader to document thinking directly on or beside the text. This minimizes the distraction of leaving the text while reading. It also helps to keep the focus on the reading rather than the writing, as it involves the recording of simple words and phrases. For struggling readers and writers, sticky note use does not need to involve writing at all. Color-coded stickies allow students to simply mark the text where they encountered connections, surprises, tricky words, or points where they applied strategies. Having a text marker for those points in their reading will help them share their thinking and recall important events Provide a whole-class purpose for stickies. This class chart allows independent readers to post findings about their connections to their “just right” texts. Reader Response Toolkit Wachusett Regional School District Creating a Successful SSR Program in a High School Classroom Gretchen Dougherty Millersport High School
