Personal Dimension of Motivation

For students to become independent readers, they need to find their own authentic reasons for reading beyond simply finishing an assignment for school. The majority of students in the 9th grade pilot readership class reported not reading for pleasure which changed over the school year to a majority who did like to read. So what were some ways this came about?

Students were asked to report on why an author or character would answer the question "why read?". They also asked family members or community members why they read. The teachers tried to show how reading is not just something one does in school. They also reinforced that reading is a process, not just learned once early in childhood.

SSR -Sustained Silent Reading was a big part of the class. They gave the students a list of methods for picking out a book they might like, because many had stopped reading for pleasure when they hit middle school and started having to read for information and not just for aesthetic reasons. Many had no strategies for picking out books, which makes sense because as elementary readers, the books they were choosing from had more visuals to scan and use to help them choose books. I really liked the explicit instructions given, so I'll share.

Ways to pick out a book

Read the back to see if it is interesting
Find a subject you like to read
Ask a friend.
Look for another book by an author you like
Skim the book- read a few pages
Find a book that relates to you
(pg. 64)

If a student didn't like the book, they were to use "the 10-page chance". Read for 10 pages, if you like it then keep reading. If you don't like it, get another book. If you aren't sure, read another 10 pages. In SSR, reading for pleasure required new rules. It was okay to put a book down.

For SSR to work, class rules need to be set down. Students need to read either their book from home or, if forgotten, a book from the class library. A good library with many genres and options needs to be available. Students should write in logs every day about their reading. But this writing should focus on how they read and how they felt about what they were reading not the content of the books. Some great prompts for the log can be written inside the front cover, to be accessed by the students each time they logged. Here is a sample of some of them:

Sentence Starters(pg. 68):

While I was reading.....

I got confused by....
I was distracted by....
I started to think about....
The time went quickly because....
I figured out that....

Give the students a regular time to share about the book with the class, using the 10-page chance criteria.

To build concentration, SSR starts around 10 minutes and builds up to 20 or more minutes. Strategies to build stamina included an exercise relating the mind to a TV with many channels. The students need to ask themselves if they are on the friend channel, dressing channel or school channel. Students can write down what they think they will be distracted by and then a plan to deal with these distractions.

Set a goal for how many books must be read during SSR for the year, broken down by grading period. Students will write a letter to the teacher at then end of each book telling about the story and about how they as a reader experienced the book. Did they like it? Are your skills changing since the beginning of the year? If so, is anything surprising you?