Motivating Reluctant Readers Who Can Read

Occasionally a reluctant reader can read, but chooses not to read. They are not interested in picking up a book. Reluctant readers never discovered the joy of reading. Perhaps they associate reading with school work, or they are so wired with gadgets reading seems like a boring activity.

How do we motivate these kiddos to pick up a book and read just for the sake of reading a great book? Let's explore a few ideas.

Create a "Joy of Reading" Environment

Let's begin by not attaching assignments to everything our students read. We may need a grade, but our students need to value reading as an enjoyable activity. We want our students to discover the mystery, adventure, suspense, horror, and joy of reading. Give your students choices and opportunities to read for enjoyment.

Reading aloud is the most effective way to introduce a variety of genres to your students. Select high interest books to read aloud. If time is an issue, select "hot" passages from great books to read aloud that will make your students salivate for more. Read both fiction and nonfiction, and most importantly, read dramatically. Your students will tune you out if you sound as if you are droning on. Don't put your students to sleep ~ wake them up!

Add Up the Books

Get your students reading on their own time with this simple strategy. Give each student a reading log to record each finished book. No times, parent signatures, number of pages read, or summaries...just books completed. You are going to have to trust your students (and yes, some students will violate your trust). Each time your student finishes a book they record it on their reading log. You must establish two requirements up front: (1) Students must select books on their independent reading level. (2) Students must record books they read on their own time (assigned readings do not count).

Set a class goal for a number of books the class will read as a whole. Fifty books is a good start. Each Friday record on a visible chart the number of books students completed reading during the week. Divide your class into groups using a random grouping system. Give them ten minutes to take turns telling the group about the book they read. They should share what the book was about and whether they recommend it or not. This is like a mini book talk. Positive peer pressure works wonders on reluctant readers.

Once the class reaches their goal hold a "reading celebration." This event can be anything from a read-in to a guest reader visiting the classroom. You might want to surprise your students with cookies or Popsicles. Keep it simple, but make it important. Set a new, higher goal, and begin again.

Literature Circles

Literature Circles gives students choice. Choice is important for reluctant readers. Real readers don't complete worksheets when they read a book, but the do talk about it. Reading groups are popular events at bookstores and libraries, and even online. Students level of discussion will involve higher order thinking skills. Keep assignments to a minimum. You might consider establishing blogs for your students to write reading responses and comments to other members in their circle. They can create a final project to present their literature circle book to the rest of the class. Give your students choices for the book they read and choices for their final product. Choice alone is a motivator and could easily change your reluctant reader's attitude towards reading.

The Literacy Box recommends these great teaching resources for teaching with literature circles~







Copyright 2009 The Literacy Box
by Lisa Frase
This article is featured on Ezine Articles.
Reprinted by Permission of The Literacy Box.
The Literacy Box domain name is for sale at www.godaddy.com

Reading Strategies Good Readers Use

A few years ago, educational researchers David Pearson and Nell Duke asked the question, "What kind of thinking happens when proficient readers read?" This question led to ground breaking research results that have changed the way teachers teach children to read.
They discovered seven key strategies that good readers use during the reading process. Innovative teachers teach the strategies directly using metacognitive thinking (thinking out loud about your thinking) by modeling their own thinking out loud during the reading process. Students apply the new strategies by practicing their own thinking orally and in writing. Books like Mosaic of Thought by Zimmerman and Keene, Strategies that Work by Harvey and Goudvis, and Reading with Meaning by Miller explore these ideas in great depth and apply best teaching practices to teaching reading strategies.

Strategy One: Making Connections

Readers bring their own experiences and background knowledge to the text. They make personal connections, they connect one text with another, and make connections with the world. These connections enrich the text and helps the reader to understand the text at a higher level of meaning. Teachers teach these connections directly: text to self connections, text to text connections, and text to world connections.

Strategy Two: Visualizing or Envisioning

Readers see pictures in their minds when they read. The best part of reading is watching the "movie in your head." Good readers experience seeing strong visual images. Children can be taught to visualize as they read. Often poor readers do not "see" when they read. We live in a visual world, yet it's the visuals that many readers lack when they read.

Strategy Three: Questioning

Readers are constantly questioning, predicting, confirming their thinking, and adjusting their thinking. Good readers have a purpose for continuing to read. The purpose lies within their ability to question and predict throughout the reading of the text. The adjustments made helps readers to understand the text at a deeper level. Their basic and deeper comprehension soars when their minds are constantly making meaning through questioning.

Strategy Four: Inferring

Good readers read between the lines. The answers are not always black and white, and good readers are able to infer meaning based on background knowledge and text clues. When a reader is inferring they are thinking, predicting, adjusting, and confirming. This leads to deeper understanding of the text.

Strategy Five: Determining Importance

Good readers understand the main ideas of a text and can determine what is important. Readers are answering questions, determining key points, and stretching their thinking as they connect the important ideas with their own knowledge.

Strategy Six: Synthesizing

Good readers are able to synthesize their reading and produce their own ideas or products from their knowledge. Synthesizing is a higher order thinking skill that requires you to reach beyond basic knowledge and create new thinking.

Strategy Seven: Fix-Up Strategies

Good readers know how to tackle difficult text. If they run across a word they don't know they chunk the word and use context clues to determine the meaning. If the just finished a paragraph and don't have a clue as to what they just read, they reread the paragraph and focus on thinking about its' meaning. They identify what they don't understand and read back or ahead to try and clarify meaning. They look at pictures or other text features (like graphs or sidebars) to help them understand the concepts or ideas. Fix-up strategies can be directly taught to help students break down a piece of text and find its' meaning.

These strategies are often taught separately, but they must be integrated and automated in the reader's mind. Once students are aware of these strategies and learn to apply them during their own reading process they begin to become an automatic part of their thinking. The strategies help readers to understand text and gain meaning by applying their own background knowledge or schema, as well as understanding the author's message.

Copyright 2009 The Literacy Box

by Lisa Frase

This article is featured at Ezine Articles

Reprinted by Permission from The Literacy Box.
The Literacy Box domain name is for sale at www.godaddy.com

How My Students Created a Magazine

I recently had a bright idea. Like all bright ideas it turned out to be time consuming, frustrating, and totally worth the results. My fifth grade curriculum required that I teach a nonfiction reading and writing unit. The end result of my unit turned out to be an awesome magazine.
The first step is to prepare your students to write by reading, analyzing, and researching. I brought in several magazine articles on the student's reading level that also happened to high interest (we even read about the Jonas Brothers). We spent time reading articles and dissecting them for text features and organizational text structure.
At the same time my students selected a topic to research. Since we needed to fit Social Studies in, I decided to ask my students to select a topic from Early America. Each student selected a different person, place, or event to keep our magazine varied and interesting.
Once we concluded our study of nonfiction magazine articles my students selected the organizational text structure for their piece, and the drafting began. In order to make life easier I set up a Microsoft Word Document with a header and two columns. This allowed students to type their pieces in a structured document that looks like a magazine piece. After revising and editing they added one additional text feature like a picture, sidebar, bullet points, or graph. The end results were amazing. I compiled the articles together and created a cover for our "Early American Magazine". Each student received a copy to take home.
Creating a magazine turned out to be a great opportunity for a number of teachable moments. We were able to integrate reading, writing, research, Social Studies, and technology into one culminating project.

Copyright 2009
Reprinted by Permission from The Wired Teacher
The Wired Teacher domain name is for sale at www.godaddy.com

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Software at Rock Bottom Prices for Teachers

I bought a new computer for Christmas. I needed to purchase a Microsoft Office 2007.I knew I could get a break by purchasing the education edition, however, I discovered I could get an even better break by purchasing my software through Academic Superstore. I was able to buy the full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 for only $99. This offer is for teachers and students. You have to prove your eligibility by sending a copy of your recent paystub and a picture ID. What a great deal!
Now I'm not one to waste an opportunity. I've been salivating over Adobe's CS4 Premium software programs. The entire package is a whopping $1700 - way out of my teacher budget range. It comes with In Design (professional publishing software), Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and more. Once again, I was aware that I could save money purchasing the teacher / student edition. I was able to purchase it at Academic Superstorefor only $600! You can't beat a deal like that. Now to learn how to use the programs!

Reprinted by Permission.©2009 The Wired Teacher

Build a Classroom or Teacher Resource Website

Website building is easier than ever. You don't have to be a total techie to create a you very own site. The first thing you need to do is create a domain name. I suggest you hop on over to the World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com to begin searching for a domain name. Try to find a name that is fairly short, easy to remember, and hints as to the content of the site. I wanted to create a technology resource site for teachers, so after a bit of brainstorming, I came up with The Wired Teacher. I recommend using a dot com if possible, although a dot net is perfectly acceptable.

Once you find a domain name you will want to purchase it. The price at the World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com is generally $9.99 per year, but keep an eye out for special savings and promotions. Once you purchase a domain name your registrar information will go into the Whois directory. I recommend you also purchase the privacy protection to keep your personal information out of the public eye. The current price is $8.99 per year.

The next step is to choose a hosting service and build your website. You can use a website building program like Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 (easiest to use, but no longer supported by Microsoft), Microsoft Expression Media 2 Mac/Win, or Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. The advantage of using your own software is the ability to store your files on your own computer. If something happened to your online website host, or you wanted to switch hosts, you would have to build your site over again from scratch.

If you are going to build a small site and want the ease of templates then you should consider using a website builder from your hosting company. I recommend using GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans. They are inexpensive to use, provide great phone support (I've made many calls just this week), tons of extra features, and easy to use templates for building your website.

Now that you have your website it is time to start building. After you create your design and content you will want to add a few must have bells and whistles. The following tools are easy to install and free to use:

1. Go to Site Meter to pick up your free counter. All you have to do is register, select your meter, and then copy and paste the code into the html portion of your website. It's that simple! The benefits of Site Meter is that you will receive a wealth of information about your visitors. This will help you determine how visitors find your site.

2. Grab bookmark and rss feed buttons from Add This. Notice the buttons at the top right hand corner of this blog. These buttons allow visitors to bookmark your site, share it with others on social networks, and subscribe to an rss feed that will keep them updated when you add new content.

3. Once your site is up and running you will want to spread the news to the world of online surfers. Grab a Tell a Friend button so your visitors can let their friends know about the great new site they just found. Go to Tell a Friend, enter your information, wait for the email (you will receive it within a couple of minutes), click on the link, select which button you want, copy and paste the code into the HTML portion of your website.

4. You can add one more bell to make your website rock. You can use Audio Generator to talk to your website visitors. This cool tool cost $, but it is a great enhancement for your site.

Building websites is fun, frustrating, and rewarding. You can offer your knowledge and expertise to other teachers, create an interactive classroom website, or just create an "about you" page to connect with the world. No matter what you decide to do, you will discover there is a wealth of online tools, gadgets, and goodies to help you create a bang-up place in Internet space.

Copyright 2009
Republished by permission of The Wired Teacher

The Wired Teacher domain name is for sale at www.godaddy.com