Suzanne Forman sez...
What an incredibly tough question. I was told my expectations were too high to ask kids to read at least 6 books this semester, unless they could all of them "in class" given class time to read each and everyone of them. The fact that I lowered my expectations from previous years was sickening enough for me, but to then be told my expectations brought bile to the top of my throat!
Motivation, Reading Levels, and Book Selection
In general, I’m not a fan of letting kids pick books they can’t read. Letting kids struggle day after day with books two or three years above their reading level is a recipe for fatigue, frustration, and the reinforcement of bad habits. But kids often want to read books they can’t read precisely because they can’t read them. Hard books are cool books, and many kids would rather be cool than literate. So over the years, I’ve developed an approach to dealing with this situation that tries to square kids’ motivations with my instructional goals.
High Expectations That Turn Kids into Readers
When people ask me, “How much should kids read?”, I’m tempted to say things like “a lot”, “as much as they can”, “until their eyeballs fall out!” I don’t say these things, but I’m tempted. It’s not that I want to be flip, it’s just that I think we’re all dancing around the wrong question. Instead of asking “How much should kids read?”, I think we should be asking, “What kind of readers do we want kids to be?”
Making Sure the First “R” Comes First
What gets tested, gets taught. That’s one of the guiding principles of education reform. And it certainly appears to be working. But is it working the way we want it to with regard to reading?
Getting Kids Started on Picking Books They Can Read and Enjoy
One of the biggest challenges in teaching reading well is making sure kids choose books they like at their independent reading level. If the texts they choose are consistently too easy, they don’t improve as much as they might over time. If the books they choose are too hard, reading is too hard. Kids become frustrated and tire easily. Worse yet, they develop bad habits that arise as coping mechanisms for tackling tough texts. In general, letting kids read easy books on a regular basis is better than letting them read hard ones. But the best thing to do is to teach kids how to find books that are just right.
Helping Kids Become Strategic Selectors
“What made you pick that one?”
I could walk up to any adult holding any book, ask that question, and as long as I didn’t get punched in the nose, probably get a good answer:
A Responsible Approach to Letting Kids Pick Their Own Books
When I tell people I let kids pick their own books for reading, I get a variety of reactions, almost none of them positive. The assumption is that I let kids read anything they want, and that I am, therefore, an irresponsible person who doesn’t care what kids read, who doesn’t teach the classics, who gets in trouble with parents and school boards, and who may be single-handedly responsible for Global Warming and the decline of Western Civilization. Despite the fact that adults choose their own books to read, few people I know think kids should be able to do this, even under adult supervision.
What I Do When Kids Have Trouble Picking Books at Their Independent Reading Level
Getting kids into books at their independent reading level is always challenging. Even when I’m working with high schoolers who’ve been reading for more than a decade, many don’t seem to have developed a sense of what they can read and what they can’t. To make matters worse, many will say they don’t like to read or that they can never find a good book. My goal is for kids to be able to do what any literate adult can do: find something they enjoy and can read. Simple as this goal is, it often eludes me.
Using the Six Qualities of Good Reading to Make Better Book Choices
To help kids find “just right” books, I start by telling them to find a book they like and can read well. But I don’t stop there. Having defined good reading as reading with the six qualities, the kids and I can use this as a more detailed way of determining whether a particular book is easy, hard, or “just right”.
I'm the President of Teaching That Makes Sense, Inc., a North Carolina-based educational consulting company that provides a variety of services to K-12 school in the United States and Canada.
Recent Comments