Did you know that college students, regardless of major, are required to read roughly 200-600 pages per week? Wow! As an English teacher, reading literature is a major part of my curriculum. Over the last several years, I have noticed a significant drop in students’ reading proficiency and consistency. I can throw all of the novels I love at them, and require students to read those novels, but… are they? The answer to that question was typically “sometimes”. This strategy wasn’t helping students to improve reading proficiency.
Through this independent reading concept, students read primarily self-selected novels, working towards a weekly reading goal that they have set at the start of the year. It’s a fairly intensive curriculum shift, and requires talking a lot about different novels, sharing books, and working in their reader’s notebooks. As a class, we read daily. If a student starts a book and determines it’s not for them, they can swap it out for another. The goal is to model what an athlete does: to improve at something, one must practice every day.
This strategy requires students to have access to books that hopefully will interest and engage them. Many of my students don’t even have a public library card, nor can they afford to buy books. That means they are borrowing books solely from the school. As a way to improve access to books, teachers are building classroom libraries to offer students more choice. These books will be available in my classroom for students to access at any time.
About my class
Did you know that college students, regardless of major, are required to read roughly 200-600 pages per week? Wow! As an English teacher, reading literature is a major part of my curriculum. Over the last several years, I have noticed a significant drop in students’ reading proficiency and consistency. I can throw all of the novels I love at them, and require students to read those novels, but… are they? The answer to that question was typically “sometimes”. This strategy wasn’t helping students to improve reading proficiency.
Through this independent reading concept, students read primarily self-selected novels, working towards a weekly reading goal that they have set at the start of the year. It’s a fairly intensive curriculum shift, and requires talking a lot about different novels, sharing books, and working in their reader’s notebooks. As a class, we read daily. If a student starts a book and determines it’s not for them, they can swap it out for another. The goal is to model what an athlete does: to improve at something, one must practice every day.
This strategy requires students to have access to books that hopefully will interest and engage them. Many of my students don’t even have a public library card, nor can they afford to buy books. That means they are borrowing books solely from the school. As a way to improve access to books, teachers are building classroom libraries to offer students more choice. These books will be available in my classroom for students to access at any time.
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