Pillar VII. Self-Selected Reading

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Pillar VII. Self-Selected Reading

Effective instruction promotes individual self-selected reading for pleasure and information. Daily reading on a wide range of topics of interest builds the reader’s confidence, skill and knowledge.

• Teachers establish structures and processes for self-selected independent reading to support a community of readers.
• Teachers explicitly teach students how to choose appropriate texts for independent reading and how to have conversations about the reading.
• Students independently choose their texts for independent reading.

What is this pillar talking about?

Building acommunity of readers begins as teachers share examples of their own independent reading about their subject or even about other subjects of personal interest, and then encourage students to do the same in different, non-threatening ways. (As a math teacher, I might also like to read articles about sailboating, and so I would share some of my new or amazing information with my students. I could also begin to make the connection between my interest and math (wind velocity, etc.) Students soon see how I read for information and pleasure, and that it is important enough for me to share with them.) The importance of literate readers can not only be modeled and expected through teacher modeling, but also through positive conversations around such natural and routine reading and sharing.

Regular times or other procedures can be put in place for students to log reading, blog responses or recommendations for fellow students about things they are reading, or complete other artistic opportunities to share what they are learning through reading. There might also be a timeonce a month or six-weeks when students meet in small groups to share anything they have been reading as they learn to talk about text. They can be given a few required questions at first, but gradually these sharings become more natural and student run. Success and positive feedback (not grades) support positive student attitudes and motivation to read more. Connections to the particular content can be encouraged, but not required. Getting students to read and share is the first and most important goal. School literacy informational programs could support parents in engaging their children in discussions about what they are reading.

AR and programs such as that do encourage reading in some students, but alone they only encourage reading for getting the answers and building up the number of books read, not necessarily for learning about something of interest to the student. Real life reading is not for how many books you can read, but for pleasure, to find information, or to answer a personally relevant question. Self-selected reading that supports building a community of readers, must be more and quite different from this kind of list reading.

This pillar has the broad goal of encouraging students to develop a positive and natural attitude toward reading for pleasure, for learning new information, and for answering personal questions about things they are interested in. It isn’t important or realistic that every child reads self-selected texts every day in every subject, but they should be doing that kind of reading sometime during most every school day, and hopefully the habit will carry over into the weekend and summers. These are not reading assignments for which students have a choice of texts, but independently chosen texts on subjects of their choosing, for their personal goals. Choices related to the content of the course can be offered for students to get started; they need to find out what is available on the subjects of their interest, why one might want to read such a text, and why sharing information gained might be a positive experience. If these are not modeled and established as norms in a class or in a school, then the self-selected reading will be just another assignment and will ultimately fail in its intended goal.

Why is this Pillar Important?

Research into adolescent literacy supports the need for schools to establish systems and procedures to encourage and increase individual selection and reading of all kinds of texts. Increasing the volume of reading about topics that students are interested in and building on their knowledge and interests builds fluency, text structure knowledge, vocabulary and word knowledge, and builds their capacity and endurance to read more complex and sophisticated texts. As a student learns more about a subject through reading and talking about it with peers, builds more background knowledge through the vocabulary and concepts, he then can be moresuccessful, and as a result more confident, in reading even more complex texts about that subject. A positive attitude about reading can be created by successfuland interesting reading for self, not by forced adherence to reading for school. School-wide activities, book talks by administrators, banners and celebrations of a book of the week, and literacy-rich classrooms where reading is what everyone (including the teacher) wants to do when they finish a project or a test can support this individual interest and endeavor. Instead of a “homework pass” for a good deed, how about a “You Get to Read Pass”?

What are the teacher’s responsibilities?

Explicit instruction on finding, choosing and talking about texts is a responsibility of the teacher, along with setting up the routines and modeling the positive reading and sharing behaviors of a community of readers. Easy access to good reads, books, article files, magazines, websites…and encouragement for students to access them all and more is something else a teacher can do to support self-selected independent reading.

Being a model of an enthusiastic and positive life-long reader of diverse texts for various purposes is the most important role of the teacher.

How might this look in different content areas?

Math: Students can be encouraged to read about real-world applications of mathematical concepts and principles, or situations where using math is practical or important. Articles or books that the teacher can model through an informal book-talk might include biographies of mathematicians, scientists, or astronauts, and articles about the importance of measurement, calculations….for example, how scientists first figured out how far away the earth is from the sun. Sharing architectural drawings and the information that goes with them…. Informational texts that explain how to figure how much carpeting to order for a room…. A bulletin board, or online blog, of anecdotes on what they find in different texts could be set up as a place to share. The teacher might spur interest in mysteries or sci fi by making connections to the math or science in a story that is accurate, or perhaps fantastic. (For example, Star Trek episodes, or stories by Ray Bradbury.) Students could voluntarily begin a search for good and bad science in books and movies. They have to do the math!

Visual Arts:Students should be encouraged and materials made readily available for readings about artists, historical movements, or current art shows. As in any class the teacher should often share his individual reading with the class – fiction is rich around some of the mysterious artists of history, missing artworks, historical accounts of art that was stolen during WWII and has never been recovered, etc. Architecture, city design, clay designs and materials through history…the topics are endless, and when students see displays, or hear mentors and peers sharing their interest in the texts and websites from which they are finding all this interesting information, they too may want to read more. They can be encouraged to share connections they find in the news, magazines or in movies to what they are studying in art. This might spur interest in reading more. Teachers could have lists posted of texts or websites for reading more about different topics, and set up routines for sharing of conversations and reflections on these readings and reading they are doing that does not obviously connect to art.

Physical Education: Students should be exposed to the occasional, but intentional sharing of the teacher’s readings, as in any other class. These one-minute connections can be of articles about health, fitness, athletes, teams, innovations in athletic training or medicine, or other personal interests such a new line of golf clubs or grass used for turf building. A reference to a thriller or mystery might involve the realistic possibility of a man jumping from one tall building’s roof to another or a car flipping over at a high rate of speed and continuing on in the same direction. Is this possible? Why or why not? Websites and files of these shared articles and other magazines and resources should be made available and a system set up for once-a- month sharing of what students and the teacher are reading. A bulletin board for notes and references, blogs, for example, make it easy and fun to share.