“Reading” – the word conjures up different images, emotions, and thoughts in us, depending on our prior experiences. For some students the word symbolizes relaxation, a time to delve into the world of stories or a time to learn about things that interest them. The thought of reading gives them the ‘warm fuzzies’ and maybe they associate it with a comfy couch, snuggling under the covers with a good book, lying on the grass in the sunshine while taking magical adventures through the power of story.

 

For other students the word “reading” conjures up a very different picture. For these students, “reading” inspires a pit in the stomach, the thought of endless minutes of boredom, a struggle to ‘say the words on the page’ in their heads, or a long wait for the whole ordeal to be over (“Mo-om!  Is my 20-30 minutes up yet?”). Maybe they envision themselves on an uncomfortable chair in the classroom, the clock ticking their lives away, all that time spent NOT doing more enjoyable things, like soccer or skating, like playing video games, participating in sports, creating art, hanging out with friends.

 

THINGS THAT GET IN THE WAY OF READING ENJOYMENT

Of course, there are many students who don’t fit either of these extreme categories. They like to read sometimes, if it’s a good book, but don’t always LOVE to read. When a student lets me know one way or the other that he/she has little interest in reading, a few things immediately come to my mind:

a) This student has not found his/her type of book, genre, authors . . . yet (Yes, I’m that kind of determined teacher, not just because I want students to love reading as I do, but because I know how important it is in our world today to be a good reader.)
b) This student is struggling to actually read the words on the page
c) This student may be just reading the words on the page, but not really
reading IDEAS

 

WHAT I DO TO TRY TO BREAK THE BARRIERS:  ‘A’ AND ‘B’

In our classroom, Room 211, the classroom library is always ‘under construction.’ I try my best to continually purchase books that will appeal to a wide variety of interests and the wide range of reading skills that a Grade 7 and 8 classroom can comprise. The library shelves include nonfiction books on a range of topics (war, science, history, culture, fashion, beauty, geography, etc.), historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, realistic/contemporary fiction, sports books, books in a series, adventure and action books, romance, and science fiction.

If a student has not yet found his/her favourite types of books or books that he/she can read without a huge struggle (barriers a and b), it could be due to a variety of reasons.  I do my best to:

• Assess the general reading level of the student through formal testing or in student-teacher reading conferences, so that I can offer up books that he/she can access independently
• Find books that the student will enjoy

 

FINDING THE RIGHT BOOKS IS NOT ALWAYS EASY

One thing I’ve learned over the course of almost 20 years in the classroom is that students who haven’t really read much on their own before, automatically assume that they will enjoy books that relate to their interests in other areas.  For example, many a young man has entered my classroom thinking that the only books for him are sports books.  The hockey players, the football stars, the soccer enthusiasts are drawn to the novels about hockey players, football stars, and soccer enthusiasts.  And yet, while these books may be interesting to them on some level, they are not necessarily the best fit for these readers.  Often, these young readers will find that while they LOVE to DO sports, they’d rather read something . . . funny, or mysterious, or something full of action and adventure.  Finding an interesting genre of book, an author’s ‘voice’ that is both intriguing and comfortable, a book that the student can read without looking up every word in the dictionary is my main goal for students whose lack of passion for reading are caused by barriers A and B.

 

BARRIER C

But what about the students who can read all the words with no difficulty?  Some students read aloud beautifully, have excellent decoding skills, can march through the thickest of reading jungles, reading all of the most challenging words by using their knowledge of phonics (sound and letter relationships), word parts (suffixes, prefixes, roots), semantics (word meanings), syntactics (word placement in a sentence).  These students may still not enjoy reading because they’re skimming the surface.

 

WHAT? A FOOTBALL ANALOGY?

They read books like I watch football.  I see people running across the field, throwing the ball, catching, blocking, tackling, and piling on top of one another, and yet none of it makes much sense to me, so I lose interest pretty quickly.  I see it all, but I don’t get much out of it.  I need to know more about the game.  I need someone to sit with me and explain why certain plays are happening, what each one means, and how they all fit together.

Strategic reading – like understanding the rules, goals, and nuances of football – can help readers delve deeper into the meaning behind the words, the symbols, the underlying meaning of the book.  And guess what?  THAT is where the joy in reading lies!  It’s in the deeper meanings of a text, in what the author is trying to say about people, or about life, or about an issue or topic that matters to them.

Learning how to read strategically opens the doors to understanding text at a deeper level which can help students to find the experience of reading more joyful, more meaningful.  No one wants to spend hours or even minutes doing things that have no meaning to them, so strategic reading is critical to helping students figure out what they love to read and why!

That’s why I’ve been teaching students in my classes to read strategically.  In the next few posts on this blog, I’ll explain the various strategies we’ve been working on in class, the reasons for using them, and the kinds of text they work best with, and how they’ve helped students to make reading a more meaningful experience.