Five Ways to Nurture Student readers
We are entering our third full week of school and students are settling into their reading routine. Daily independent reading is a sacred time in our classroom thanks to these five practices.
Celebrate books students have read by making it public! I set up a bulletin board in my room where students record the books they have read on a piece of cardstock that looks like a book spine. The shelves start out empty so that we can see our growth as the year progresses. Adding to the shelf is a source of pride and motivates students to keep reading!
Involve students in setting up your classroom library. For a full explanation of our process, check out my previous post. Linked here.
Encourage students to give book talks. I start out by giving a few talks (or advertisements) on books I think students will enjoy. Then I teach students how to give their own book talk by sharing the book’s characters, setting, problem and a few other features or details they enjoyed. Not only do book talks encourage a culture of reading, they create an authentic purpose for teaching the skill of summary.
Book recommendation cards. Take book talks a step further by encouraging students to write their recommendations on notecards. Many students have seen similar displays at local bookstores so they understand the purpose. I model writing a card, we write one as a class about a favorite read aloud text and then students write their own. I set index cards and stickers near the spot in our library where we display these recommendations and invite students to contribute as they finish books.
Reflect on our reading lives and set goals. Students engage in oral and written reflection about their reading habits and interests. I encourage them to answer honestly about questions like:
“I’m the kind of reader who..”
Reading is… Readers do…
My reading challenges are…
I like reading when…
This gives me valuable information about their past reading engagement and motivation in and outside of school. It also serves as a great launching point reflection and goal setting. Stay tuned for a future post on this topic.
Celebrating the books we read, one spine at a time!
Student recommendation card.
There you have it! Five tips to launch or sustain reading in your classroom. While these steps are great for the start of the year, I also take them out during the year when I notice a drop in student reading engagement.
What do you do to engage your students as readers? I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below!
