“I’m a reader!!” Fifth grader, Elena wrote these words in her notebook after completing
the graphic novel,
Smile by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic, 2010). Elena was one of six fifth graders who arrived at a local middle school reading on a first-grade instructional reading level. I conferred with each one during the first week of school, and their feelings toward reading were the same: they “hated” reading and said it was “boring” and emphatically stated that I would never get them to read a book. Often, such responses from students leave teachers frustrated, because despite their best efforts, children do not feel a connection to books and reading. While this frustration is understandable, it shouldn’t keep you from finding ways to support developing readers—students reading three or more years below grade level. Once it’s possible to look past feelings of disappointment, you can credit the students for being honest, even if their honesty includes anger and frustration. Now, the next step is identifying students’ strengths and then finding ways to use these strengths to support their reading needs.
For three years, I coached fifth and sixth grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers and we learned from our students and professional study and discussions. Together, we developed interventions that would support the six students and all students, including others reading at a second and third grade instructional level. The question teachers and I continually revisited was: How can we best serve these students? In my coaching career, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside teachers and administrators who have successfully made reading books a central part of learning with students who didn’t see themselves as readers. Together, the fifth and sixth grade teams and I designed a workshop curriculum that would support the diverse readers in their 60-minutes of ELA every day.
Developing a Flexible Reading Workshop
Teachers and I agreed that continuing to have students practice isolated skills and teachers reading required novels aloud because more than half the class couldn’t read them wouldn’t work. Why? When students aren’t reading every day, they don’t increase their reading volume and improve. The research of Richard Allington (2014) and Stephen Krashen (2004) along with the scientific study completed by Samuels and Wu in 2004 pointed out the strong connection with the amount of daily reading students completed and their reading achievement. ELA classes transformed into a reading workshop with instructional decisions focusing on students’ interests and strengths! To invite students into the reading life, it’s important to integrate specific skills into the context of materials they’re reading. In a workshop, students can have choices and options and instruction can be targeted to their needs. With large classes you can organize flexible groups and work with two to four students on decoding, fluency, and figuring out the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues. Formative assessments inform the content of flexible groups. These groups can be homogeneous or heterogeneous and are temporary because students collaborate with you until they achieve the learning objective. For example, the group of six students reading on a first-grade level worked with me for 10 to 15 minutes each day on word study and phonics while other small groups practiced inferring, expressive reading, visualizing, etc. Those not in a group had extra time for independent reading. Two teaching practices remained constant every day: classes opened with fifteen to twenty minutes of independent reading followed by about 10 minutes of interactive teacher read-alouds that connected to mini-lessons and the genres and themes of specific units.
Classroom Libraries for Independent Reading
Asking for classroom libraries for eight fifth and sixth grade ELA teachers was a bold move, but I persisted. I discussed the research with the principal, and he and I met with the superintendent who released funds for classroom libraries with 300 to 350 books in each one. Besides including books on a range of reading levels, teachers ordered a variety of genres, including graphic novels for both grades. I suggested teachers include graphic series such BabyMouse, Amulet, and I Survived as students who read series boost their volume and can develop the stamina to concentrate on reading for twenty to thirty minutes. Teachers modeled how to choose a “good fit” book, and students had choice of books they could and wanted to read. All students gravitated to graphic novels, but for the six students that I worked with, graphic novels developed their reading identities and brought them into the reading life.
Graphic Novels and Reading Growth
In a study of graphic novels completed for The Bank Street School of Education, Brittany Rosenberg cited four ways graphic novels support growth in reading (2018). (1) Students find graphic novels motivating and engaging. (2)
Graphic novels are multimodal and support visual and textual literacy. (3) Teachers can use them to teach and practice high order strategies such as inferring, visualizing, and comparing and contrasting. (4) Math, science, and history teachers can find a variety of graphic novels relating to their subject, allowing students to read widely throughout the school day.
Students loved having series and looking forward to the next book kept them engaged in reading. Oscar summed it up this way: “When I’m reading one BabyMouse, I thinking of the next one.” Graphic series not only motivated students to read, but it also improved their fluency, enlarged their vocabulary, and increased their recall and comprehension. Often, pairs decided to read the same book and discuss the pictures and text that in turn sparked their thinking and connections.
By the middle of sixth grade in addition to reading graphic novels, two of the students in my group were reading novels in verse and nonfiction books. Near the end of the school year every student had read a verse novel or an informational text. Along with continuing word work to improve their decoding, the six students read dozens of graphic novels in grades five and six and developed the stamina to concentrate on reading. They also read different genres and experienced pleasure in reading to learn and for enjoyment.
Takeaways for Reflection
My work with developing readers has taught me that there is no single recipe for success. However, there are five general areas that consistently need attention:
· increasing reading volume
· enlarging vocabulary and background knowledge
· word study, decoding, and fluency
· recall and comprehension
· formative assessment
I’ve also found that there are a handful of teaching and learning practices that can contribute to students’ success in reading:
· modeling and thinking aloud to make your process visible
· providing choices for students
· improving fluency through practice and performance of poetry and readers’ theater scripts
· writing about reading in readers’ notebooks
· conferring with students
· using flexible grouping to support students
· advocating for all students
I don’t have the one true way or answer, but I know that you can and will adapt and adjust the ideas in this article to what your students show you they need. The reading journey that you and students embark on is unique. By knowing your students’ strengths and needs and developing positive trusting relationships with them throughout the school year, you can boost their reading achievement and start them on a journey to becoming lifelong readers!
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