How to Keep Your Student Reading Throughout the School Year

by Jack Farrell

Trustee, Mammoth Unified School District

 

                  School is about to start and the joy of summer reading is about to be replaced by the rigor of academic content for many of our students.  For parents the question becomes: how do I sustain an interest in reading outside school all year long, for teachers need this kind of support on the home front?  Many teachers are skeptical that the reading they assign outside of class is actually done by students, so they move some or all of it into the lesson.  If students would read their assignments at home, teachers could move faster and cover more of the curriculum.

                  Most of the students I have interviewed in the last 10 years admit that they do little or no assigned reading at home.  What they do instead is skim.  If the teacher assigns the questions at the end of the chapter, students read the questions first and then skim the chapter looking for the answers, often assisted by the bold-faced type publishers insert through-out their texts.  Both parents and teachers ask to see the homework and are satisfied when the see a paper with the questions answered.  Students consider skimming to be reading and feel they have dutifully done their assignment.  To sustain reading throughout the school year, especially of content-area material, parents need to assist teachers in actually monitoring the reading. 

                  I argued in previous articles that students should replace some of their summer reading with non-fiction, whose advanced vocabulary and complex structure spur academic growth.  Since the focus of school is on content-area reading, parents can encourage a supplemental program focusing on fiction.  Schools often support this endeavor through sustained, silent reading programs.  Parents looking for guidance here can turn to the Library of Congress, which maintains a website that can be accessed by typing Òliteracy.govÓ into your browser.  The actual address is: www.loc.gov/literacy.  The site is dedicated to lifelong reading, but is focused primarily on the emerging reader.  There are wonderful lists and activities for parents and their children, and quite a few resources for teachers as well.

 

                  Here are my three main recommendations for parents and students:

  1. When out of school for summer or vacation, move a higher percentage of your reading to non-fiction.  This may rise as high as 50% for high school students. 
  2. While vocabulary lists, either in school or from an SAT preparaton book, play a role, wide and deep reading is the best way to increase your academic vocabulary.  Most of a personÕs vocabulary is acquired through context, repeated exposure to words through reading or listening. 
  3. The vast majority of reading should be done silently, not orally.  Fluency precedes comprehension, and so it is vital to make reading an automatic task.  Once students have automatized reading, they free a part of the brain for the higher ordered tasks of comprehension and critical thinking.  Students should spend 9 minutes reading silently for every minute they read orally, both in and out of school.

 

                  Gore Vidal once said: ÒWe do not need better writers; we need better readers.Ó  There is an entire library filled with startling insights rendered in exquisite prose that the vast majority of readers cannot access because of poor reading skills.  The key to unlock the library door is practice, practice, practice!