So READ already! LIBE 477 Fostering Reading Cultures in Schools

Inquiry Blog Post #1

It has become more of a challenge to get some students at high school to read and to value reading. At my school, the grade 9’s are our most active readers. Coming from middle school, they are used to book exchange and to an expectation that they will always have a book on the go. As well, in their middle schools they had much reduced access to their cell phones and much less “free” time. This changes at high school. The students come to the library learning commons to hangout, sleep, connect with friends, do homework and sometimes take out a book. We still have many die-hard readers, but it isn’t unusual for a student to tell me for me that they don’t read!

I recently spoke to a number of students in grades 11 and 12 and asked them what they were reading in English, and what books they had read and enjoyed. Almost all of them confessed that they didn’t really read the books assigned to them in class. Some of these students were in the highest-level English  courses. 

Video: Penny Kittle: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Sometimes I wonder if this is what assigned books look like to them--an array of bits of information, the organization of which is confusing, and requiring significant effort to make meaningful.

https://www.dreamstime.com/creativecommonsstockphotos_info

Public domain image Scrabble Tiles with Letters.

So, what to do? What to do? How to create a culture of reading in the school?

The video illustrates how each of the students improved in the number of books and the number of pages they read when one change was made and they were given choice. Teachers often teach a whole class novel. There are many benefits to this method. According to Kate Roberts, “Having the support of a teacher and a class of peers when reading a book can lift the level of our  thinking and can hold our attention in ways that sometimes reading on our own does not “(Roberts p. 11). 

However, if students don’t read the book any potential benefit is lost. This semester I will be working with a class of grade 11 English. We are beginning with a whole class novel, but then the students will be moving to individual choice novels with similar themes.  I hope that students will want to continue to explore the themes and ideas from the novel with additional books, articles, short stories and poetry.

Sometimes students don’t choose a book because they have difficulties making choices. I think book talks might be a way to focus on books they would be interested in. In high school, students choose option courses. Working from the premise that they are interested in these courses and might, by extension, be interested in reading more about the ideas presented in these courses, I am compiling reading lists of books, fiction and non-fiction. I hope to have at least a couple of these lists ready for second semester—next week. I’ll pull the books and take them to the classes for book talks. This is an idea adapted from Penny Kittle’s book Book Love. In chapter five, “The Power of the Book Talk” she advocates talking about three to five books at the beginning of class to introduce students to many different books. For example, if you like psychology, you might want to read The Silver Linings Playbook, School of Fear, or Freaking Out: Real Life Stories about Anxiety. Since I am not a classroom teacher I will go in only once or twice a asemester and ste the list of books that way. 

Bibliography

Kittle, Penny. Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers. Heinemann,  2013.

Penny Kittle. YouTube, 15 Mar. 2010, youtu.be/gokm9RUr4ME.

Roberts, Kate. A Novel Approach: Whole-Class Novels, Student-Centered Teaching, and Choice. Heinemann, 2018.