Let’s get them to love reading, how?
One of the most frequent debates I see on the social media
of the education world is the role of reading and how it is delivered. More
specifically how we can develop and foster a love of reading. In the second
half of the previous academic year I began to give this considerable thought.
How can we give a child an emotion? How can we ‘make them’ want to read? This I
felt was more of a challenge than teaching them how to write a sentence for
example or learn their tables. Those are tasks that can be proven and completed.
In comparison loving reading is, of course, an intrinsic emotion that is hard
to quantify. This is even further complicated by the fact that much of this
reading naturally will be done away from school and as children get older away
from parents too. Therefore I set about a three pronged attack on my class’
unsuspecting minds and observed how they got on.
Reading is number 1 – This sounds silly but I looked at my
own class bookshelf and noticed that though there were several great children’s
books on it (and a number of education ones) there was no real depth. How was I
promoting quality children’s literature to my class if I wasn’t doing this
myself? To let you in on a little secret, I haven’t read perhaps half of the
books on my bookshelf, but the children can see they are there and that I fully
have the intention of reading them. I am sure many teachers are already doing
this however I now have many teachers popping into my room to borrow off my
bookshelf. These books have been bought by the school they aren’t ‘mine’ but it
also shows the children the value that the other adults in the school put by
high quality texts. The class rushed to ask for recommendations and requests
and next year I am going to make some books ‘out of bounds’ like a forbidden
section in the library. There will be special release dates when the children
can then ask to borrow something that I know they have had their eyes on for a
while rather than just asking for it because they like the cover. It is utterly
imperative that teachers know children’s books, Dahl, Morpurgo and Enid Blyton
have their place but they are most certainly not what we should be relying on
when you have fantastic writers like Marcus Sedgwick, Abi Elphinstone and Maz
Evans producing relevant, engaging and enthralling modern tales that children can
relate directly to.
Freedom. . . to a
point – So what is appropriate for children in say Upper Key Stage 2 to be
reading? Who gets to decide? Is it even our job to decide? Personally I think
that is entirely up to you, you are the professional, you are the teacher, you
know your class, do what you think is right. Having said that you’ve read this
far so I will now bore you with what I think. I want every single child in my
class to read as much as they can, as many different styles and genres as they
can and as many different text types too. We have a responsibility to support
this and if necessary set barriers to ensure this happens. This year I will be
colour coding specific genres of different books, the children will record what
book they have read and see what genre this falls into. At Christmas we will
discuss what colour cards they have and why this is. If they have only read
what we have dubbed ‘family dilemma’ books, Tracey Beaker etc is this
necessarily going to provide them with the depth of language and setting
variety we would want? If a child adores Beast Quest that is brilliant however I
feel it is my professional responsibility to also ensure they are reading books
that aren’t fantasy based, different text types like poetry and a range of
non-fiction too. Think of it like this, imagine speaking to said child when
they hit 16 and they had only ever read fantasy, they may have grown into
Tolkien and Pratchett but they will have been denied the world of Dickens and
Stephen King because we just want to make sure they are reading? All the
research shows reading tends to lessen as children hit their teenage years, we
must show them the whole world of possibilities before they start to narrow
their reading choice even further. Of course some of this rests with parents
also but I feel we must take a hand in this. If we as educators demonstrate a
desire to read as widely as possible, and explain the virtues of different
genres and text types then little constraint and directing should be needed anyway.
Beyond reading – now I know this can be a contentious point and
that’s fine but I love reading records. When used properly they are a treasure
trove of information and evidence for a teacher. Note I am not speaking of the
diary that says ‘Read page 4-8. Signed Mum’ this is entirely pointless and just
smacks of teachers pushing their children to fill them in because SLT say they
must be used.
What I am talking about can be seen below,
This particular child has recorded her journey through the
book. She wasn’t initially enjoying the story though as you can see from her
comments. However she explains what she feels the author’s intentions are. By combining simple comprehension explanation
with their own feelings and attitudes to the text I am able to get a much
clearer understanding of where this child is with their reading. I am not going
to pretend this was the standard for every child however every child did
develop their diary almost as a companion; they viewed reading as naturally
flowing into writing and discussing books. It is almost a diary of their reading
accomplishments and feelings. This feeds into their class ethic and work.
By May I had half of my class spending 40 minutes a morning
reading to each other in what became known as reading conferences and then
sharing their feelings about the books. They trained themselves, learnt from
others and guided each other through this process to such a point that other
than dropping in the occasional ‘question bomb’, as they came to dub them, they
were fully independent. This left me to fully engage with the children that
still needed more support on decoding and comprehension.
I am not going to pretend that every child in my class
suddenly fell in love with reading and did it without pause. However every single child left more engaged with
books, better aware of how to talk about and interact with a book and far more
aware of the texts around them. Please try these ideas, let me know if you have
any suggestions of how to improve them or if you think I am missing a trick
somewhere. Good luck! Let’s get them to love reading, how?
I often wonder at which age does the love of books end for the majority of children. I have worked in all year groups throughout my career (22 years) and some of my favourite teaching moments have been sharing a story with EY, Year 1 and 2 and then as I get further up the school, something strange happens. I often despair when I go to Year 3/4 and I can clearly see that this enthusiasm shown by the younger children has gone for a lot of the children. I notice that it is mainly the 'less able' readers who sigh, switch off and become distracted. Hopefully this is not in response to me as a teacher! �� They are just not interested in sharing a story. My Initial thoughts reflecting on why this is: Lack of teacher enthusiasm for books and language/vocabulary; the lack of quality and relevant books on offer to the children in classrooms/ school libraries; the time constraints to really get involved in book talk; less parent involvement with reading for pleasure at home. We have SO many children (KS2) who in a recent reading survey told us they would love a bedtime story but didn't have one.
ReplyDeleteJust some quick thoughts after reading your post. Hope it is helpful.
Jo
I completely understand. I think that many children as they get older notice the gap more and more and can't keep up with the increasing difficulty of many texts. I will blog about what I've specifically done with my lowest readers soon.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more about your 'reading to each other' sessions. Do the students take turns reading a section to their partner and then the partner asks a series of questions? Do they record anything? Thank you!
ReplyDelete