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Envision a classroom…the teacher speaks

Okay sixth graders, we’re going to stop for just a minute and think about your reading. Our reading test scores aren’t very good, so we need to find out just what the problem is and to work out better ways to help everyone read better. As I ask just four questions I’d like you to write those down and then answer them. The teachers and parents will use this to understand how to help you to become avid readers.

No, this is not a test. These are questions and requests for information about you and your reading. Each of us will have different answers. Just tell the truth about you as a reader. Progress is going to start with where you are right now. Okay, do you have your names on your papers? Good.

Okay, first question. “Write down the names of the last three books you have read and a few sentences about what each was about.”

(Pause for them to work)

I’m noticing that some of you have written the question down, but don’t have anything as an answer. If you can’t remember the titles exactly, just write down your best guess, or write down the author’s names. If you can’t remember what the book is about, you could just write down that you don’t remember.

(Question from the class)

What books have I read lately? Well, I’m one of those readers that keeps 10 books going all the time. When I have time to read, usually before bed time or on the weekend. I always take a dozen books on vacation. Anyway, when I have time, I look through the stacks by my bed, or on my shelf, or the ones I carry with me…see here in my brief case is what I’m reading right now, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid…and I just pick the one that strikes my fancy. So I always have something going…I just finished a murder mystery by Tami Hoag, Dark Horse. I love those. Before that, I guess I read one by James Lee Burke, The Last Car to Elysian Fields . Then I’m also reading a book called On the Back of a Napkin, which is about using drawing to help you think and share things more clearly. It’s really cool.

All right, enough about me. The second question is “Who is your favorite author or authors?”

(Pause)

Well, that should be pretty easy. At some point, everybody has read a book by an author that has touched them or made them feel good and they want to read more from that author…like for me that would be John Sanford or Tony Hillerman, or Bill Bryson. If you don’t have an answer to that question, just write down that you haven’t found a favorite author yet. That can be good information for us. We can help you can start to explore authors, reading from different ones and determining which ones that really make you yearn for more.

The third question is actually three. “How many books do you own? ” and “I you go to the library to check out books how many books a week do you check out?”

So this one asks for two numbers. Yes, they’re talking about books that are your very own that you have in a special place where you keep such things. You don’t need to give the exact number. Just guess at about how many that you have and how many that you check out each week.

You don’t have any books? Four? …and you don’t have a Library card? Okay, well whatever the number…even if it is zero…write that down.

(Question from the class)

Me? Oh well, I’m older, so I’ll bet I own a couple of thousand books…books from college…books I buy when there’s a sale or when I travel…paperbacks and reference books. Lots of books about teaching of course, lots about travel and art and sailing and photography and building things and history…just lots of things.

(Question)

Magazines? Well my wife and I take several magazines, but this question is about books. Sure, I read magazines. I love to sit down with my Smithsonian or National Geographic. Each one of those is an education in itself. I always learn something interesting.

Okay, fourth question: “How much time to you spend reading books of your own choosing outside of school each week?”

No, just make your best guess. No, not homework or AR books. We’re talking about reading books that you select on your own and that you enjoy reading. Estimate the minutes or hours or whatever each week night and then add however long you might read on a Saturday or Sunday. No, just a guess.

(Pause and Fade to today )…

Sound familiar? If teachers are eager to know how to help their students to read better, then these four questions about the most obvious and basic aspects of their students’ reading practices can lead to some interesting insights. Here is every teacher’s nightmare…

What if YOUR students haven’t read even three books in the past year, or possibly worse, they have but can’t tell you anything about them?

What if YOUR students don’t spend any time reading outside of school?

If the case in your school or classroom is that there isn’t much self-selected, independent reading at all, and if your children don’t read at home because they don’t have books and/or don’t go to the library, then frankly it really doesn’t matter what the test scores say. You already KNOW what’s keeping your children from improving their reading. If your kids don’t schedule time in their lives to read, don’t have anything to read at home and don’t have any method for finding new books to read, then they will NEVER get any better, regardless of how many scientifically-based researched skills or strategy lessons we might teach. It’s that simple.

To get better, they have to DO IT. If they don’t, they won’t.

One last question, this time from me to you: How much total time do your students spend reading books of their own choosing in school every day?

So....any questions?