I am finding that the trend of reading for fun is slowly dying. As a child I loved to read and would sometimes go through 2 books a week. As I get older I don’t have much time to sit down and enjoy a book during the school months so I save all the books I want to read for the summer when I have time to relax and enjoy the novels.

I think it’s so important for students to fall in love with reading a book as we are so technology based in this day and age.  We need to create and explore new ways to show students how valuable books are and how they can help us with valuable skills we need in life such as summarizing, communication, and making connections.

I have found a great article that gives great ideas on ways we as teachers can motivate students to read and you can find it here 

Monkey see, Monkey Do

One strategy the article mentioned was to have students see you read. When students are working quietly or you have assigned them specific time to read, join them. If they see you doing something other than reading, chances are they won’t be interested because they aren’t seeing you do it. Pick up a book and relax with them. You can also talk about things you’ve read at home and bring it up in class for a discussion. Children love to hear about what teachers do on their free time, and if they hear  that you read at home, chances are they might go home and do the same.

Integrate Technology

Technology won’t be going away anytime soon, so it is evident that we need to incorporate technology into our reading strategies. Have students download an app such as Book Creator where students can create their own stories and use their imagination. You can have your class share their stories in partners and create dialogues of how the story made them feel, what they could add to make it more interesting etc..

Give them a choice

Sometimes students aren’t engaged with reading because the books are chosen for them. It doesn’t attract their attention therefore they do not want to read it. Have a conversation with your class about all the different types of literacy genres and give them a choice to pick their own book in the school library. Students will be more engaged if they have chosen something that is appealing to them.

If we promote active reading in the classroom we can inspire children to understand that reading is important. We can encourage healthy discussions in the classroom based on each students novel they've chosen and this could inspire other children in the class to read the same book and come up with their own opinion different from their peers. Students are allowed to disagree with others opinions and this could create more dialogue in the classroom. 

The author of this article, Janelle Cox also has a Twitter page which also gives teachers great ideas and resources in regards to empowering educators. Her Twitter page can be found here. 

I am curious to see when I receive my placement if silent reading, or novel studies are still part of the curriculum or even if my associate teacher has new ideas that I never even thought of yet.