Throwback Thursday

My Reading Program

Jay Simser - 

When I first started teaching (eons ago) I  discovered that the Basal Readers were pretty boring for students.  As I was an avid reader and enjoyed reading a lot these books really turned me off.  With the participation of the Reading consultant I worked to have the students read in books of their choice.  We did a pre and post test with the students and discovered that they grew about two years in reading by allowing them free choice and time to read. 

I realized that these students (for the most part) have basic reading skills.  Some of them, however, did not choose to read. 

I developed a series of questions to use with the students.  These are generic questions and are used either in a conversation about the books the students are choosing or in conjunction with a Reading Journal which I have developed.  They follow:

Why did you choose this book to read?

Would you choose another book by the same author?  Why or why not?

Was this a good title for the book?

Why do you think so?

Give another title that would fit the book.

Which character in the book would you most like to be?  Why?

What would you have done differently from the author if you had been writing the book?  Why would you do it that way?

What is your opinion of this book?  Why do you feel this way about the book?

What do you know about the author of the book?  Do you know of any other books by the same author?

Which character in the book is most like yourself?  Why do you say that?

What obstacles or problems did the main character have to overcome or solve?  How did they go about doing this?

Please describe some of the action or suspense in the book. If you do not feel that it had action or suspense what kept you wanting to continue reading the book?

Tell the story of the book in one or two sentences.

Did you gain or learn anything from reading this book?  Please describe what you gained or learned.

The expectation in my classroom is for students to read one chapter book a week.  I reward students who read 100 books as a “Century Reader” with a certificate and take them out to lunch at a “fine restaurant.”   Several years I had a double century reader (200 books).

Most of the students responded very positively to this program.  One year I had a student who had never read an entire book before coming to me.  He became such a powerful reader that my the end of the year I had to pull him out of a book to get to work on his other schoolwork.

I have found this to be a successful and rewarding program.

One other thing I did was assign a certain genre or type of book for a month and have the students write a book review on it.  i.e.  February - A book by a black author or with a black as the main character;  March - A book by a woman author or with a strong woman as the central character;  April- fantasy