For years educators have debated why Johnny can’t read. Now they’re worried that Johnny doesn’t want to read.
In a culture awash in 30-second TV sound bites and frenetic computer games, language arts educators and reading specialists are stepping up efforts to keep students interested in the printed page.
Leyden High School District 212 just completed its third year of the Leyden Reading Initiative, a reading program designed to encourage students and staff to read for pleasure.
To develop the habit of reading for fun, every Wednesday morning during fourth period, the entire school stops to read. Whether they’re in study hall, physical education or English class, for 25 minutes everyone–even many administrators, secretaries and support staff–stops what they are doing to read whatever they want.
“We live in an era when the average home has three or four TVs, not just one,” said Jane Morton, a teacher and reading specialist at West Leyden High School in Northlake. “Reading materials aren’t necessarily lying around the house anymore because both parents may work and they’re too busy. Kids don’t see their parents reading.
“We’re saying it’s OK to sit down for 25 minutes and read something just to enjoy it. Maybe the next time they go home and have the choice of a magazine or book over TV, they’ll pick up the magazine or book.”
Niles Township District 219 high schools use variations on the SEAR (Stop Everything and Read) technique. In November, Niles North High School in Skokie sponsored a “Read Into It” weeklong celebration of recreational reading that included book discussions, special reading hours and trivia contests in which the answers were found in books and magazines and on the Internet.
At Niles West High School, many English, reading and related classes dedicate one period a week–usually on Fridays–to sustained silent reading.
“The kids love it. You can’t hear a sound in the room,” said Patricia Stone, reading specialist at Niles West. “Sometimes I think it’s one of the most beneficial things we do because otherwise they don’t sit down and take the time. It’s the last thing on their agenda.”
Stone also has her classes read novels out loud together and discuss them. They recently read “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” The kids seem to like it, she said.
One of Stone’s favorite teaching tools is using problem-based learning as a motivator to get kids to read. The kids are given a problem, put in an adult role and charged with solving the problem. The problem requires extensive reading and research to solve.
“I don’t believe that skill-and-drill activities transfer into regular reading,” Stone said. “I think what increases reading and reading comprehension is more and more reading. If you can make what the students are reading vital and interesting and help them with reading strategies, in case their comprehension falls short, their interest fuels more reading, which ultimately improves reading.”
Recently, Stone and a colleague, Jody Weatherington, put students in the adult role of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They were asked to come up with a policy that would help the FDA determine whether animals should be used in pharmaceutical research.
“Then we go through what they need to know to make a decision and where they can go to learn more,” Stone said. “The kids go to the library to do research, go to the Internet, interview real people, argue with each other. And all the time they are reading. The kids don’t come in and say, `I’m not interested in reading this assignment.’ They have this job to do. They are put in adult roles–which kids love–and told they must make a decision. And they do it.”
What about younger kids who are not ready to do critical thinking? What motivates them to read? At Chase Elementary School in Chicago’s Logan Square-West Town area, teachers use rewards to help the pupils develop a reading habit. The entire school, except for kindergartners, participates each school year in the Accelerated Reader program, a national computer-based reading comprehension program. The school adds its own incentives to keep interest in the program high.
Pupils can pick any book from the Accelerated Reader section of the library. The librarian helps them figure out if it is well-matched to their reading level. They read the book, go to the school computer lab and take a brief multiple-choice test about the book. A 1st grader reading “Are You My Mother?” may be asked five questions. An upper-grade pupil reading “Little Women” might be asked 20 questions.
Computer teacher Jeffrey Einbinder administers the test. “Typically kids start with books that are two years below their reading level because there’s usually a discrepancy between how well they do with recreation reading versus reading for content. If they get 100 percent on their comprehension test, they get moved up to more difficult books. You start them at a level where they can be successful and slowly advance them to more challenging books. The goal is to get them to read on-level and beyond.”
Each book is worth a certain number of points. If a student scores 100 on his comprehension test, he gets 100 percent of the reward points allotted for that book. Two years ago, when the whole student body met its goal of 5,000 points, the assistant principal (now the principal) had to kiss a pig. The kids loved it.
In June 1998 at the annual school carnival, the pupils received tickets based on the points they had earned. “We had games they could play and win prizes,” Einbinder said. “We also had a dunk tank where kids could use their tickets to throw a ball and try to dunk teachers such as myself into the tank.” This year’s attraction was a climbing wall.
In the 1998-99 school year, Chase hosted an ice cream social, a movie and popcorn event and an off-campus field day at a local park. Participation in all these events is earned by accumulating reading points; pupils earned nearly 12,000 points.
Einbinder said reading specialists sometimes worry whether the program motivates children to read for the right reason. Are they reading out of a love of reading or the chance to dunk a teacher?
“In the end, if the students obtain the skills they need to read and if it brings them . . . up to grade level, then what got them to do it is not as important as the end result,” Einbinder said.
At Herrick Middle School in Downers Grove School District 58, 7th and 8th graders look forward to their once-a-week 40-minute period of silent sustained reading, said Mary Lynn Guy, who was the lead language arts teacher until she retired in June. To make the written word further come alive, the school also brings in speakers to talk about what the kids have read in class.
“For example, we had a woman from Naperville come in who was connected with the American Red Cross at the end of World War II and went into the concentration camps,” Guy said. “We were reading `The Diary of Anne Frank,’ and she could make a personal connection to what the kids were reading. Last year we went to Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills to see a touring company perform `The Diary of Anne Frank.’ “
Every three years the PTAs of all the schools in District 58 sponsor Authors Fest. A well-known author who writes for young adults is invited to spend a day at each school talking to the children about their books and how they write them. In March, Caroline Cooney was the featured guest author. In anticipation of her visit, the PTA at Herrick bought 30 Cooney books for each language arts classroom so the children could read one or more of her books and discuss them.
The effort to instill in pupils a love of reading is paying off, Guy said. This spring two pupils came to her before class and said, “Do we get to read today?”
