What happens when you put a stack of books in front of a toddler? You see excitement as he or she opens the book and holds it out for you to read it. When the reading is finished, you hear the word “Again!” You smile and start reading it one more time. You finish. “Again!” you hear. “Again” never seems to have an ending. The toddler eagerly looks at the pictures and helps you turn the pages. He or she may also say the words with you since, you know, the book has been read at least a hundred times. When one book is finished, another one is quickly grabbed out of the pile by a little hand and pushed into yours with the anticipation of hearing another story.
Fast forward a few years . . .
A stack of books is placed in a 4th grade classroom. What do you see? A small portion of students will look eagerly for that one book they want to read, but there are some that want nothing to do with the books. Oh, they may look at the cover – possibly crack it open – but then the book is tossed back into the pile. “Again” is replaced with “I hate reading” or “I’m not good at reading.” How is it that in just a few years’ time the joy of reading has vanished and in its place is apathy?
I’m not here to blame anyone or anything of stealing the joy of reading. I’m just going to give a few observations that I have made that might help with understanding where the joy went and how to get it back.
What happens to reading when a child progresses through school? I dare say that reading begins to look like a school assignment. A third grader was asked if he read books at home. His response was “No, reading is a school thing.” A fourth grader was asked the same question. “No, I just read what I’m told to in school.” When asked if he liked to read, the third grader (Joey) said that he likes to look at the books when he goes to the school library, but he is told that he can only check out the books with the blue dot on them. That response puzzled me until I saw what he meant. I was sitting in the school library when I saw Joey’s class enter. The teacher reminded the students that they were to check out two AR (Accelerated Reader) books, and they only had 15 minutes to find them. I watched Joey as he went over to the shelf where the yellow dot books were. The books were colored coded with dots so that the students knew what leveled books they could choose from. Joey ‘s books had blue dots on them. He chose a yellow dot book and then quickly chose a green dot book. When his teacher saw what he had chosen, she told him that he had to put those books back and choose the ones with the blue dots. I watched as Joey slowly returned to the bookshelf and with a heavy sigh take two blue-dotted books without even looking at the covers. Joey’s teacher came over to me and said, “I just don’t understand why Joey doesn’t want to read.” Ummmmm . . . Could it be that Joey would like to choose something other than a blue dot book to read? I understand the idea behind AR, and perhaps I will someday write my thoughts regarding AR, but I think AR is good in theory, but the practice is lacking substance to truly get students, particularly struggling readers, engaged in the process of reading. The AR illustration is only to show that some students feel trapped into reading a certain type of book. It is not to condemn the practice of AR.
How can we get students once again excited about reading? Here are a few tips.
- Let your students see YOU read. When was the last time you shared with your students a really good book that you thought they might like to read? When was the last time you read silently when the students were silently reading? We hear about modeling reading and, I think, sometimes we show students how we want them to read, but we do not model our own silent reading in front of them. If we show joy in reading, hopefully, that will rub off on our students.
- Are you giving your students a choice of what they can read? I totally understand that we do not want our students to get a steady diet of books that are way below or way above their reading level. But think about how you would feel if you were told you were limited to reading only that which is on your reading level.
- Make reading exciting. Please get rid of the old book report templates. There are many activities that can replace the book report that actually get students to WANT to read books. I recently saw a bulletin board in a second grade classroom that displayed students’ book recommendations. The teacher worked with the students on how to rate books and how to write a teaser to make others want to read the book. The books had a wait list because so many students wanted to read each other’s books.
I do not believe the joy of reading is gone forever especially for the students who do not like to read. I think that it has just been lost or misplaced, and teachers have the map for finding the hidden treasure we call “joy.”