Build a Classroom of Readers

Building a classroom of readers is one of the most important jobs as a teacher at any grade. Literacy permeates every classroom activity at some level, and, therefore, needs be a focus throughout the day, not just during the literacy block. Although building a classroom of readers looks different at various grade levels, there are some key ideas that span all ages.

Building a community of readers requires a focus in several areas, including:

• Classroom Environment
• Classroom Routines
• Curriculum

Not all students like to read. How do you motivate students who don’t want to read? The student may be a decent reader, but just doesn’t want to pick up a book. What can you do in your classroom to instill the love of reading?

Awhile back, I did a blog post on Motivating Reluctant Readers. There’s some great information in that post about being creative and giving choice. This post goes further and deeper, outlining many of the things I do in my classroom to engage students in reading throughout the day.

My general approach is to try a lot of different things and hope something resonates with every student. No student is exactly like another student. No two students are going to like the same thing, so I must try many different things to reach each student. Most years, at least one thing will click with each student and motivate them to read during our read to self time. There have been a few years where nothing seemed to work. Those years are the hardest, but I just keep trying.

The thing about motivating reluctant readers is that you have to create a classroom culture of reading. It involves your classroom environment, daily schedule, and how you interact with your students all day long. Engaging students in reading is always on the forefront of my mind as I plan lessons. I want my students to love reading and developing a curiosity about books and learning.

Here are some of the things we do in our classroom that creates a love of reading.

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Create a Classroom Environment with Books

Invest in a good classroom library and continually get new books. Present the new books to students in an inviting way that makes them want to read the books. Think about creating a system for new books that builds anticipation for the books.

Consider buying series of books or books that are similar in some way. Once students get hooked onto a series, they tend to want more of it. Here are a few books that have been recent hits in our classroom:
– Joke books
– Graphic novels
– Ivy & Bean
– Magazines, like Scholastic News and National Geographic Kids

Create a library that has a range of levels.  Students need to find just right books as well as books that help them fall in love with reading.  Since you have a range of learners in your room, you will need a range of books.

Display books on a shelf where students can see the front covers of books, possibly in another location from your classroom library.  A couple years ago, I got a bookshelf where the books face out.  I put it on the other side of my room from my classroom library, near my carpet area.  This does a couple things.  

One, I can display books that relate to what we’re studying or new books that we’ve recently added to our library.  Having the front covers facing out draws students into the images of the book and entices them to pick it up.  Two, having books on the other side of the room, creates another space where students can look for good books.  It’s all about surrounding students with good literature.

Pay attention to the $1 books from Scholastic. If it’s a good book, purchase a class set for special occasions or no occasion at all.

Go to your local library on their book sale days. At one of ours, you can pick up a bag of books for something like $5.

Establish Classroom Routines that Emphasize reading

Do Daily 5 – We have daily time for Read to Self. Each student has 20-30 minutes of individual reading time each day.

Read to Someone – Some years, we have done read to someone and that really motivates students to sit down with a friend and read a good book. Peer pressure can have positive effects, too!

DEAR or SSR – If you don’t do Daily 5, consider having a time during the day where everyone reads everyday. Students don’t have enough time engaging with books. If you think it’s happening at home, I can tell you, as a parent, it’s not. Although we try to sit with our boys each day and read with them, there are plenty of days we don’t. Research shows that the more a student reads (minutes-wise) the more words they read, more concepts they’re exposed to, and more they learn over all.

Literature circles – As students get a bit older, teaching with literature circles gets students discussing and diving into good books.

Create a reward or tracking system. This is not for all students, but some who are motivated, will respond and read, read, read. Be sure to create a system that doesn’t penalize students for not reading. Not all students will resonate with this method and you don’t want to make them hate reading. I have a Ring of Books that I used with my class. Some students latched onto it and took off reading. Others didn’t.

Hold a book exchange. Have students bring in good condition books from home that they no longer read. For every book a student brings in they can exchange it, for a new-to-them book.

Read Aloud Good Books that Hook Your Students

Read aloud great literature, both picture books and chapter books. Reading aloud books draws students into the story and gives them a time of rest during the day. Use read aloud for instruction, but also have a time of the day where you just read, without having students do anything with the book.

Just let them enjoy it.

Choose authors and books that are part of a series or where students can read more about the topic and use the read aloud time to set the stage for future learning. Reading aloud books is one of the best ways to help students fall in love with good books.

As you are teaching other subject areas, math, social studies, science, P.E., consider how to infuse reading into the content areas. Not only requiring students to read the content, but have them synthesize the information, compare and contrast, classify, identify cause and effects and talk about the content that they learned while reading.

Alternatively, consider putting some of the content into your reading time, but instead of focusing on the content, focus on how to read the text and extract the needed information from it.

Vocabulary is an important component of reading instruction. In the past, I’d often put it to the side, mainly for time reasons, but in the past few years, I have seen the difference vocabulary makes for my children of poverty and my English learners. For the most part, they can decode and read the words on the page, but they have no clue what they’re reading.

There are so many nuances of vocabulary that cannot be taught, but just exposing students to new words and permeations of those words helps. Students need repeated exposure to new words in order to really know them. Isabel Beck does some awesome work with vocabulary.

Take Field Trip to the Library

Consider taking a field trip to the library and bringing parents along. Get each student a library card. You can’t require that they visit the library, but you can introduce them to the wonderful world of a library.  I recently re-discovered one of our local libraries. Life had gotten busy and I hadn’t visited a library with my own kids in years.

We have a ton of books at home and I have an extensive classroom library, but it pales in comparison to a public library. My five-year-old wanted to read some funny books and I’d asked for some recommendations from some fellow teachers. I was about to buy the books and then remembered that we had a library with easy access to all the books I wanted to purchase (and more)!

Check out books from your local library for your classroom. They have a ton of books! And, it’s okay to use them in your classroom. Check out the books you need for students to do research projects, seasonal books, or if you don’t have an extensive classroom library, use it to supplement your library. Just be sure you keep track of the books and return them!

Other Resources to Build a Classroom of Readers

Learn to Love Reading in 30 Minutes a Day –  is a great article from ASCD about how to promote the love of reading with middle school students. It would work for upper elementary too.

The Book Whisperer – This echoes some of the thoughts in the above article, but with more details and in book form. Again, it is really geared toward upper elementary and middle school, but the premise could be applied to lower elementary as well.

The Reading Strategies Book –  This is an awesome book that you can use during your small group instruction or literature circles that specifically addresses the strategies students can use while reading.

I loved books as a child.  Falling in love with reading was not difficult for me, so it is hard to relate to students who don’t like reading.  What do you do in your classroom to help your students become avid readers?  I’d love to hear more ideas and add to my arsenal of reading motivators.