It’s often hard to get students to read a novel
because nowadays, there is Google, spark notes, and movies that students claim
give them the same experience. Getting students to read is usually a battle as
they start to doze off or day dream instead of remaining engaged. So how can we
as educators help students engage with a text? We must be prepared to work with reluctant and
disinterested readers.
In an article titled “How to Engage ALL Kids in
Reading,” Dr. Katherine McKnight speaks about her colleague who taught the
lowest level readers in the 6th grade
and managed to get her students to look forward to reading. Dr. McKnight states
“we must provide books that will peak interest in all readers” and she provides
a lot of tips for choosing the right book. We need to find books that are
“written clearly without long confusing sentences and sophisticated language”
(McKnight). As English majors, we get excited about novels that we’ve read but
we forget that it doesn’t meet our students’ reading level. We might enjoy the
sophisticated language that some books offer but our students can find this
quality confusing, hard to read, and end up disliking books. Instead, it’s best
to start with a book that is appropriate to their reading level and slowly work
up toward higher level books.
Dr. McKnight also advises teachers
to do the following: “choose literature that explores the lives of other
teenagers, make sure humor is present, the characters are realistic and the
reader can relate to them, and the plot should be interesting and appealing to
young adult readers” (1). These are great tips in choosing the right book for
our students, but engaging reading strategies need to also be present during
the reading.
In “Instructional Strategies Motivate
and Engage Students in Deeper Learning,” Tom Dewing states that “teachers can
improve students’ reading and writing skills by getting them to read for
meaning” (2). Dewing gives an example of a strategy that could be used to help
students read for meaning. He states that first, teachers should “give students
a list of agree or disagree statements about the assigned text, then ask students
to preview the statements. Afterwards, begin reading and then ask students to
indicate whether they agree or disagree. Lastly, have students justify their
agree/disagree positions by citing appropriate evidence from the text” (2). This is a great way for students to form a
connection with their own personal thought to a reading. By having students
cite the text, it can help students build good research skills for future use.
Choosing the right text is the first
part in helping students start to read, but reading strategies are going to
keep students engaged.
Works Cited
Dewing, Tom. "Help More Students Become College
and Career Ready by Successfully Engaging Them in Reading Complex Texts in
Science, Social Studies, Mathematics and Career/Technical Classes." Instructional
Strategies Motivate and Engage Students in Deeper Learning. Atlanta. 2013.
1-2. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
McKnight, Katherine. "How to Engage ALL Kids in
Reading." TeachHUB. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
Ms. Nguyen,
ReplyDeleteStudent engagement in reading, I suspect, is a huge struggle for many of us - myself included. One thing I think that can really help spark that engagement is doing things like book passes or book talks where we can either put multiple books into kids hands and ask them to engage with them briefly or read a chosen selection out loud to spark interest. I really like the approach of doing a sort of climate survey you bring up with the agree/disagree and the citations - I think this will encourage some more focused reading on the part of the students and really ask them to digest the text rather than skimming.
Of course, the big bonus to trying to find just the right texts for our students is getting the chance to read the literature ourselves and find copies for our classroom shelves.
Thank you for providing several excellent resources (I'm off to find them myself) and to inspiring your students to become those engaged readers you know they can be!
--Mrs. Tolbert
Quynh,
ReplyDeleteNothing frustrates me more than when we are reading and students instantly put their heads down and instantly tune out whatever is going on around them. In my head I'm always screaming "THIS STORY IS SO GOOD WHY DO YOU GUYS NOT WANT TO PAY ATTENTION."
However, now that I have read your blog post, it's apparent to me that I am probably the only one for whom these stories are enjoyable. I haven't really taken the time to find supplemental texts outside of the literature text book to help students relate to the main stories for our units, and I think that might be extremely beneficial to do in the future.
This leads me to my next point: If I could find one YAL piece and present it as an introduction to the main story of the unit, as well as create an anticipation guide, I think students would feel much more connected to the text as well as be more intrigued as we read. I am excited to try these things out and see how they influence my students' excitement about reading.
Thank you so much for this post,
Michaela
Quynh, thanks for your thought-provoking post! You make good points about the importance of the right texts and the right instructional strategies. Two books that might interest you are Penny Kittle's BOOK LOVE and Kylene Beers' WHEN KIDS CAN'T READ: WHAT TEACHERS CAN DO. You can probably find work from both authors (especially Kittle -- http://pennykittle.net/) online for free too. Thanks for your post!
ReplyDeleteHow right you are. Choosing a text that will engage your students is important. Having students cite evidence from the text is essential. Students can "prove" their point in the words of the author, and in so doing, they model for other students how to find meaning in the words on the page. Good luck in teaching literature to your students!
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