Silent Sustained Reading has an Important Role in
Teaching Reading
by
Angela McCall
If you visited many high school English classrooms, you would hopefully see a variety of things happening. Kids would be reading and discussing the classics, as well as some new young adult novels. Students would be engaged in using technology to write and create. One thing you might not see them doing is silent sustained reading (SSR). Somewhere between middle and high school the idea that choosing their own reading materials, and having an opportunity to read them in school while seeing the teacher doing the same, is lost. Does it somehow become less important in the summer before their freshmen year of high school? Is there so little time in the high school English classroom that we cannot fit in a love of reading? Should that not be the main priority? Many teachers would say definitely. In many cases teachers indicated they felt that silent sustained reading (SSR) modeled the value of reading, provided students with opportunities to choose reading materials, and expand their vocabulary (Nagy, Campenni & Shaw p.8). This would seem to be a fantastic activity, yet when time must be found for teaching to the ever present high stakes tests, silent sustained reading (SSR) time is often the first thing to go. My goal was to show that silent sustained reading (SSR) can be used to enhance reading comprehension in my ninth grade classroom.
I did a study during one quarter to see if SSR had an impact on reading scores. This was done with my freshmen English class. My school is a rural school with 500 students. The students are mainly Caucasian and lower middle class. The school does have a great library and media specialist. She gets all the award winners and the newest books for the students. I will also have a classroom library with books for the students to use. Modeling reading is an important part of SSR, so I will have my own novel that I read during reading time. At the
end of each SSR time I will share something from my novel, and allow them to share an interesting part of their own. I want to encourage a discussion of their books. The only rule I will have is that everyone must be reading some kind of book. I will not allow magazines or newspapers.
The beginning of the study coincided with parent-teacher conferences. I took advantage of this by giving each parent a survey questioning if they think of themselves as readers or not. Ninety parents were surveyed, of those ninety; fifty said they considered themselves non-readers, meaning they do not read anything on a daily basis. The rest were tied, with twenty saying they were readers, and twenty saying they considered themselves in between the two extremes (see Figure 1).
I then gave the students a modified version of the same survey (See Figure 2). I asked if they would rate themselves as someone who reads for fun, reads only if it is assigned for a grade, or never read. Of my classes surveyed, ten percent said they read for fun. Seventy-five percent read only if it is assigned for a grade, and fifteen percent never read. Part of my goal for this study will be an attempt to use engaging novels and projects to try to foster a love of reading. Hopefully, these numbers will go up.
After giving the survey, I then created an oral fluency test with my district’s reading recovery teacher. I used a system of checks and numbers so I could rate the students quickly as they read in class. I focused on the following: reads fast or slow, loud or soft, pauses, expressive voice, easily understood. I used the following scale: I judged them three times over the course of the study, once at the start, once in the middle, and at the end. I was then able to clearly judge the student’s oral fluency to see how it improved over the course of
the implementation of SSR. The results were very encouraging (see figure 2). In the beginning I had two students that were below average, by the end of the study I only had one, and the number of students that I had above average went from two to three. There were obviously some gains.
In this time of high stakes testing, when teachers are being held responsible in many ways for teaching to a test and not invited to stray from the subscribed curriculum, is it smart to use time for silent sustained reading? Obviously, the answer would be yes. If even one student makes a gain, it is worth it.
One of the key factors in determining if a silent sustained reading program is successful is in the implementation. It is important that students are allowed to choose their own reading materials, that they are not graded on a set of questions following the reading, and that an adult models reading for them (Nagy, Campenni &Shaw p. 9).
SSR has been around for years in some form or another. In some cases entire schools or districts stop and read at certain times. In other cases, it is left to the teacher to decide on a time. It was first started as an educational practice in the 1960’s as a response to the decrease in reading for leisure (Kirby p.8). Unfortunately, some administrators see SSR as ‘free time’ or expendable time. They do not understand how powerful it can be in the classroom.
Three questions that seem to be at the heart of determining whether a SSR program will be successful or not are the following:
1. Does silent reading help increase student’s enjoyment of reading?
2. Does SSR increase students reading on their own at home?
3. Do students enjoy SSR and do they really read during that time?
When Mary Kirby had her ninth graders fill out questionnaires answering these questions, the results were in favor of SSR. Eighty-two percent of students questioned stated that they do in fact enjoy the reading time and felt that it introduced them to genres they would not have otherwise read at home (Kirby ps. 36-38). One thing that Kirby found was that students actually read more if they thought they were getting some kind of grade for their reading (Kirby p. 39). This is interesting since it actually goes against one of the fundamental ideas behind an SSR program, that grades are not assigned. SSR was intended as time when kids could pick out a book and read without worrying about grades. Yet, the kids actually responded more when a grade was assigned. How can a teacher reconcile this?
One way is to think of SSR as any other teaching method. Teachers are the experts that know their students. They often tweak their methods and make them their own, the same can be done with SSR. A teacher must find out what works for their classroom, and not get stuck in the rut of doing it in some prescribed manner (Garan & DeVoogd, p. 337). As with any other method in a teacher’s toolbox, SSR is only one method of encouraging reading and can be adapted in many ways.
One thing that I did for my study was to tie SSR in with Accelerated Reader. My students would read their books with no grading, but they did have to choose one of their books over the quarter to give a presentation on. I gave them many different options from drawing something to go with their novel, to dressing like the main character. This way they were able to still choose their own material, and feel some ownership in a project, without being bogged down worrying about a grade.
Another adaptation that appears to be working in some schools is the R5 method. The five components of this model are read, relax, reflect, respond and rap (Kelley & Grace p. 152). The idea being that students are reading, while relaxing, yet they do some form of reflection on what they read and some form of discussion. It could be as simple as telling if you would recommend the book and why. Students then know there is some form of accountability for actually reading. It supports the research that students are more engaged when they know some form of grade or evaluation is coming.
Results:
Throughout the quarter, my studied students made some gains in their reading comprehension, and in their oral fluency skills. By the end of the study, I had no students scoring in the basic proficiency area for comprehension, and the number of students scoring in the basic area went down significantly for oral fluency. It created such an atmosphere of literacy in my classroom. Students were discussing and sharing ideas for novels and recommending books for others to read. I was pleased with the findings of this project. Overall, SSR is a positive strategy for teachers to use to encourage a love of reading and learning. That is the dream of most teachers, to create lifelong readers and learners.
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