Reading is fascinating and fabulous. No other subject can surpass it because no other subject can be effectively taught unless the student can read!
If a teacher can convey the idea to the students that reading is fun, the job of teaching reading is greatly simplified! The students will take it from there. With fun and interesting materials, a student will teach himself or herself, to read better. His or her skills will improve automatically as the student begins reading more and more.
One simple way to make reading more fun is by selecting a theme and making reading assignments based on the theme (e.g. racing, frontier life, etc.). Then concentrate on their reading skills “secretly” within the selected theme. Try to choose activities which students can enjoy which takes their attention off the fact that they are being taught a reading skill.
The more a child reads, the better reader he or she will become....this is my theme! So, if I get the student to read more, I do not have to stress skills and dwell on workbooks.
Your attitude as a teacher is what is most important when teaching reading in the classroom. Be excited, be prepared, be creative, smile, and read a lot! Don’t expect your kids to read if you don’t.
Fun Sheets
Make everything you do in class a “fun” activity. Call them “fun sheets” instead of “work sheets”.
Use Multimedia
Use the television set, tape recorder, VCR, and record player once a week or more, if possible. Video-tape your students in their activities and you’ll see a marked improvement in the students’ attitude and progress. Pursue activities that use media, because kids love it!
Intersperse Games
Games are more important than most teachers think. Any teacher can waste valuable hours teaching vocabulary and spelling while their students are “tuned out”. However, one game of Password or Scrabble will tune the students back in. Insist that students use these games, so that they are continually reinforcing the use and meanings of words. Games really work- try to design original games or adapt commercial games for each reading skill. This brings lots of fun into the READING class.
Posters and Black Lights
Bright colored posters and black lights sound outrageous in a classroom, but if you culminate a library project with a “read-in” with black lights, you will be surprised how much more successful your library project will be.
Use What Works
Granted, all students in junior high and high schools will not work well with the same activities and games. You may have to refine the games/activities to come up with ones that for your students. This is where your creativity is put to the test. If one activity does not go over, drop it....try another. You may drop ten before you find a successful, fun learning experience for one particular group of students, but it is worth the trouble. Instead of being in a rut, you find you are constantly thinking of activities to motivate one student or a whole group. And the best place to get those motivating ideas is from your students themselves. Let them read about subjects they like and enjoy and show an interest in...That’s when reading becomes fun for them. Sit down with your students. Ask them, “What would you like to read about these next few weeks? Name some activities for me to consider as I write this unit.” You’ll get some brilliant and some dull suggestions. Your job is to filter...find the most fun activity which best suits the reading skill you are concentrating on. Then try it!!
Rewards and Contests are Powerful Motivates
Use rewards, contests and prizes constantly. Even if the students work for the prizes rather than for acquiring reading skills, do not worry. As long as he or she has to have the skill to win the prize, your job is a success. Whatever his or her aim, he or she still acquires the skill, and that is what I am interested in. Awards and rewards work wonders. You’ll be surprised how long a very poor reading student will read, just to get a piece of gum or a bookmark...no big prize...just a token to show that I appreciate his or her efforts. More and more, students will try for that appreciation. Many people disagree with me on the reward system, but, I know that we, as adults, thrive on kind words, 5-year pins, “Woman of the Year” awards, and rewards of all types, sizes, and shapes. Why, then, would we not expect our students to thrive on simple rewards such as kind words, certificates, prizes, trophies, etc.? No matter what our ages are, we like to be recognized for achievement, and if our rewards are not misused or overused, them I definitely believe in them. Not only that, but in thirty years, I have seen the reward system work over and over, with students on whom other teachers had “given up”.
Selecting Reading Materials
What part do readers and other material play in the classroom, and what types of materials should I use? These are questions often asked by teachers. I say, use anything and everything you find to interest your students and get them to read. Then, slowly integrate some good books and stories into their reading schedule...along with those comics. Yes, I recommend comics if that’s all you can get student to read. I sometimes use comics and magazines in my READING classroom as a supplement and a treat. Then I try to have interesting paperbacks on topics in which my students are interested. Paperbacks are more appealing than readers, although I do cover the standard readers. I believe in allowing and encouraging students to read books on motorcycles if this is one of their interests you will find this stressed over and over in my writings.
Students Select Their Own Topics
Let the student read anything worthwhile on topics he or she loves. Don’t force your books and materials on him or her. Expose a student to good paperbacks but do not choose for him or her. You’ll run into listlessness, sleeping students, uncooperativeness, and discipline problems if you do. Direct and guide to good materials on a wide variety of subjects and at the same time, get rid of any trash they might have. A good way to do this type of filtering is to have a book trade their trashy paperbacks for some good sound reading on their favorite subjects. I do not believe in “trashy” language or stories, so I read the books first, and burn the garbage. Bad language shows a lack of intelligence and a lack of vocabulary so I wish students would keep out the books with filthy language. There are “tons” of books with decent language in them for students to read. However, I leave the choices to the students and their parents, and never tell a student he/she cannot read a particular book or author.
What About the Classics?
What is a classic? It is a book which, due to excessive reading, has become a very popular book. Many of our so called “classics”, however, were chosen many years ago when interests were entirely different. Should we cling to all of them as the “foundation of good literature”? I say, expose them to these “Classics” and let today’s readers make their own classics! Many “classics” are popular with our current students and they are fine but some are forced on students because the teacher or parent liked the book herself! This, to me, is an injustice to the child. Let the kids be free to choose and make the classics of 1996, but only if guided and directed, so that “trash” is not considered a classic!
Remedial Reading
Teaching reading is fun because all sorts of opportunities and paths can be takes. Those kids who “can’t read or who hate to read” can be brought around to “love to read” with easy, interesting materials. You need to show a great interest and love for reading yourself. I keep “fanciest” for those students who have particular reading problems and individually help him or her with that skill. But I never try to force stories and books of my choice only.
Remedial reading is part of any READING curriculum because there are students in almost every grade who cannot read at their grade level. The most important thing in the teaching of remedial readers is motivation, as no one can be taught something he does not want to learn.
Remedial reading students usually have a long history of failure, and, although they do not like to fail, they have grown to expect it and react either stoically or flippantly. In order to establish an aura of hope about their study, it is necessary, first of all, to convince each student that he really can succeed.
Measuring Success
The measure of success to the student is the grade. One of the most successful approaches to the teaching of the remedial reader is the guarantee him/her that you can assist him/her to raise his or her grades from one to four levels, if the student will apply himself. This must be done at the beginning of the year, even before the student can see the long range results of the reading therapy to be undertaken and developed painstakingly throughout the year. In order to implement this guarantee, supportive work in the other solid subjects of the student must be a part of the remedial curriculum.
Good Study Methods Important
Study methods must be emphasized. The techniques of extracting information from a textbook without reading word for word, must be taught and practiced in the reading classroom. The student must be taught to look at chapter title, introductory remarks, section headings, pictures, charts, and graph captions, and words must be encouraged to study the questions at the end of the chapter before he starts to study, as well as afterward.
Even if the reading class becomes temporarily almost exclusively supportive to science, social studies, and other courses outside of the reading, the time is well spent in establishing motivation.
Oral Response Builds Confidence
The student must be urged to respond orally in his other classes whenever he understands the answer to the instructor’s question, in order to build an image, in the eyes of his peers and his teachers, of one who is able and interested in the work. The most important result of this work is the change of the student in his own estimation of himself. During this period of study, the remedial reading teacher may also place emphasis on supportive work in the study of spelling, if it is a part of the English curriculum.
Spelling is one of the keys
Spelling is such a concrete type of discipline, that concentrated work in reading class can make an immediate difference to the student’s grades. Board work can bring in phonics, syllabication, blend and digraphy study, etc., all taught through the medium of the weekly spelling unit. As the student’s study increases in spelling, his grades will almost certainly reflect the time spent. As the grades improve, interest grows. A beautiful thing to see is the growth in spirit of the remedial reading student who has raised his hand in social studies class to answer two questions correctly, and has made a glorious C in spelling for the first time of the current year. As the student tastes success, possibly for the first time in his/her life at school, his/her ambition and appetite for further achievement is whetted to the point where he will push the remedial teacher to help him study a difficult point in a supported class rather than avoiding the issue. The inspired remedial class will often tell the teacher that they need to study vigorously on some other subject rather than have a more pleasant, sometimes recreative period which she may have planned, to vary the curriculum.
Classroom Behavioral Changes
The major result of motivation in the READING class is the achievement of the child, resulting in a change in attitude and behavior in the classroom. A secondary result may be that remedial readers who are not in a class receiving help, may apply for such help. The remedial student who has tasted success and believes that it is possible for him to succeed is more tenacious in his pursuit of excellence than many grade level pupils who are content to “sustain average” work.
Arranging the Classroom to Increase Achievement
One of the areas of greatest concern, in regard to my own classroom, has always been the matter of arranging the classroom in such a way as to best help each child concentrate and develop good work habits. I have often put a few desks against a wall or in some other position away from the main work areas. To further isolate a child having difficulty concentrating, I have used chart stands to make partitions between desks.
One year I decided to go one step further and experiment with a more permanent partitioned study area. I placed a library table in a back corner of the room and around it I constructed a lightweight wooden frame work with six divisions. From the top poles, I hung sheer but still opaque fabric which was weighted on the bottom with wooden rods.
No child is seated in this area permanently. As much as possible, the use of this area is left to the discretion of the child. Of course, I make suggestions to children who I think really need to use it. The children enjoy this privacy and are quite eager to have the privilege of having an “office” to themselves.
The atmosphere in the room during the reading period is definitely quieter and more conductive to study with use of this device and the children’s work has shown marked improvement. This is also useful when most of the class has completed the assigned work but a few still need a settled environment to complete their work.
In using this, device, I hope the children can learn to concentrate and complete their work accurately and without delay. The ultimate goal is that the children will be able to work in any environment, regardless of distractions that may occur in the general classroom. I see this aid as being merely a help along the way.
Classroom management is tremendously important in teaching reading, and I’ll cover it more in teaching ENGLISH. Using such procedures as “feedback” charts for novels read, can be great time-savers for teachers. I put a chart up for each class, and as novels are read and evaluated by tests, essays, or oral reports. I record a grade under the names of the “suggested” novels. (I include lots of heading called “Free Choice” books.) By using this chart, my fast readers can “zoom” and I can easily keep track of all readers. They can also see which books they have read, and which ones are still required! I love the feedback charts, and later, I’ll explain how I used them in ENGLISH class.
The Importance of Praise
Praise is so important in a reading classroom because it encourages students to help themselves. The more you praise, the more the students will read, and the more they read, the better readers they will become! So your praise sometimes works “wonders”, and keeps students excited and enthusiastic!
Teaching READING is fun because all sorts of opportunities and paths can be taken. Those kids who “can’t read or who hate to read” can be brought around to “love to read”. There are many books written on the field of reading, but this is one which I feel will be helpful and unique one which I hope a reading teacher in junior or high school can pick up, read, and use as a guide in the classroom a tool, not a dust catcher. I sincerely hope you find it an aid to helping your students discover that happiness is reading, and reading is the heart of education.
If a teacher can convey the idea to the students that reading is fun, the job of teaching reading is greatly simplified! The students will take it from there. With fun and interesting materials, a student will teach himself or herself, to read better. His or her skills will improve automatically as the student begins reading more and more.
One simple way to make reading more fun is by selecting a theme and making reading assignments based on the theme (e.g. racing, frontier life, etc.). Then concentrate on their reading skills “secretly” within the selected theme. Try to choose activities which students can enjoy which takes their attention off the fact that they are being taught a reading skill.
The more a child reads, the better reader he or she will become....this is my theme! So, if I get the student to read more, I do not have to stress skills and dwell on workbooks.
Your attitude as a teacher is what is most important when teaching reading in the classroom. Be excited, be prepared, be creative, smile, and read a lot! Don’t expect your kids to read if you don’t.
Fun Sheets
Make everything you do in class a “fun” activity. Call them “fun sheets” instead of “work sheets”.
Use Multimedia
Use the television set, tape recorder, VCR, and record player once a week or more, if possible. Video-tape your students in their activities and you’ll see a marked improvement in the students’ attitude and progress. Pursue activities that use media, because kids love it!
Intersperse Games
Games are more important than most teachers think. Any teacher can waste valuable hours teaching vocabulary and spelling while their students are “tuned out”. However, one game of Password or Scrabble will tune the students back in. Insist that students use these games, so that they are continually reinforcing the use and meanings of words. Games really work- try to design original games or adapt commercial games for each reading skill. This brings lots of fun into the READING class.
Posters and Black Lights
Bright colored posters and black lights sound outrageous in a classroom, but if you culminate a library project with a “read-in” with black lights, you will be surprised how much more successful your library project will be.
Use What Works
Granted, all students in junior high and high schools will not work well with the same activities and games. You may have to refine the games/activities to come up with ones that for your students. This is where your creativity is put to the test. If one activity does not go over, drop it....try another. You may drop ten before you find a successful, fun learning experience for one particular group of students, but it is worth the trouble. Instead of being in a rut, you find you are constantly thinking of activities to motivate one student or a whole group. And the best place to get those motivating ideas is from your students themselves. Let them read about subjects they like and enjoy and show an interest in...That’s when reading becomes fun for them. Sit down with your students. Ask them, “What would you like to read about these next few weeks? Name some activities for me to consider as I write this unit.” You’ll get some brilliant and some dull suggestions. Your job is to filter...find the most fun activity which best suits the reading skill you are concentrating on. Then try it!!
Rewards and Contests are Powerful Motivates
Use rewards, contests and prizes constantly. Even if the students work for the prizes rather than for acquiring reading skills, do not worry. As long as he or she has to have the skill to win the prize, your job is a success. Whatever his or her aim, he or she still acquires the skill, and that is what I am interested in. Awards and rewards work wonders. You’ll be surprised how long a very poor reading student will read, just to get a piece of gum or a bookmark...no big prize...just a token to show that I appreciate his or her efforts. More and more, students will try for that appreciation. Many people disagree with me on the reward system, but, I know that we, as adults, thrive on kind words, 5-year pins, “Woman of the Year” awards, and rewards of all types, sizes, and shapes. Why, then, would we not expect our students to thrive on simple rewards such as kind words, certificates, prizes, trophies, etc.? No matter what our ages are, we like to be recognized for achievement, and if our rewards are not misused or overused, them I definitely believe in them. Not only that, but in thirty years, I have seen the reward system work over and over, with students on whom other teachers had “given up”.
Selecting Reading Materials
What part do readers and other material play in the classroom, and what types of materials should I use? These are questions often asked by teachers. I say, use anything and everything you find to interest your students and get them to read. Then, slowly integrate some good books and stories into their reading schedule...along with those comics. Yes, I recommend comics if that’s all you can get student to read. I sometimes use comics and magazines in my READING classroom as a supplement and a treat. Then I try to have interesting paperbacks on topics in which my students are interested. Paperbacks are more appealing than readers, although I do cover the standard readers. I believe in allowing and encouraging students to read books on motorcycles if this is one of their interests you will find this stressed over and over in my writings.
Students Select Their Own Topics
Let the student read anything worthwhile on topics he or she loves. Don’t force your books and materials on him or her. Expose a student to good paperbacks but do not choose for him or her. You’ll run into listlessness, sleeping students, uncooperativeness, and discipline problems if you do. Direct and guide to good materials on a wide variety of subjects and at the same time, get rid of any trash they might have. A good way to do this type of filtering is to have a book trade their trashy paperbacks for some good sound reading on their favorite subjects. I do not believe in “trashy” language or stories, so I read the books first, and burn the garbage. Bad language shows a lack of intelligence and a lack of vocabulary so I wish students would keep out the books with filthy language. There are “tons” of books with decent language in them for students to read. However, I leave the choices to the students and their parents, and never tell a student he/she cannot read a particular book or author.
What About the Classics?
What is a classic? It is a book which, due to excessive reading, has become a very popular book. Many of our so called “classics”, however, were chosen many years ago when interests were entirely different. Should we cling to all of them as the “foundation of good literature”? I say, expose them to these “Classics” and let today’s readers make their own classics! Many “classics” are popular with our current students and they are fine but some are forced on students because the teacher or parent liked the book herself! This, to me, is an injustice to the child. Let the kids be free to choose and make the classics of 1996, but only if guided and directed, so that “trash” is not considered a classic!
Remedial Reading
Teaching reading is fun because all sorts of opportunities and paths can be takes. Those kids who “can’t read or who hate to read” can be brought around to “love to read” with easy, interesting materials. You need to show a great interest and love for reading yourself. I keep “fanciest” for those students who have particular reading problems and individually help him or her with that skill. But I never try to force stories and books of my choice only.
Remedial reading is part of any READING curriculum because there are students in almost every grade who cannot read at their grade level. The most important thing in the teaching of remedial readers is motivation, as no one can be taught something he does not want to learn.
Remedial reading students usually have a long history of failure, and, although they do not like to fail, they have grown to expect it and react either stoically or flippantly. In order to establish an aura of hope about their study, it is necessary, first of all, to convince each student that he really can succeed.
Measuring Success
The measure of success to the student is the grade. One of the most successful approaches to the teaching of the remedial reader is the guarantee him/her that you can assist him/her to raise his or her grades from one to four levels, if the student will apply himself. This must be done at the beginning of the year, even before the student can see the long range results of the reading therapy to be undertaken and developed painstakingly throughout the year. In order to implement this guarantee, supportive work in the other solid subjects of the student must be a part of the remedial curriculum.
Good Study Methods Important
Study methods must be emphasized. The techniques of extracting information from a textbook without reading word for word, must be taught and practiced in the reading classroom. The student must be taught to look at chapter title, introductory remarks, section headings, pictures, charts, and graph captions, and words must be encouraged to study the questions at the end of the chapter before he starts to study, as well as afterward.
Even if the reading class becomes temporarily almost exclusively supportive to science, social studies, and other courses outside of the reading, the time is well spent in establishing motivation.
Oral Response Builds Confidence
The student must be urged to respond orally in his other classes whenever he understands the answer to the instructor’s question, in order to build an image, in the eyes of his peers and his teachers, of one who is able and interested in the work. The most important result of this work is the change of the student in his own estimation of himself. During this period of study, the remedial reading teacher may also place emphasis on supportive work in the study of spelling, if it is a part of the English curriculum.
Spelling is one of the keys
Spelling is such a concrete type of discipline, that concentrated work in reading class can make an immediate difference to the student’s grades. Board work can bring in phonics, syllabication, blend and digraphy study, etc., all taught through the medium of the weekly spelling unit. As the student’s study increases in spelling, his grades will almost certainly reflect the time spent. As the grades improve, interest grows. A beautiful thing to see is the growth in spirit of the remedial reading student who has raised his hand in social studies class to answer two questions correctly, and has made a glorious C in spelling for the first time of the current year. As the student tastes success, possibly for the first time in his/her life at school, his/her ambition and appetite for further achievement is whetted to the point where he will push the remedial teacher to help him study a difficult point in a supported class rather than avoiding the issue. The inspired remedial class will often tell the teacher that they need to study vigorously on some other subject rather than have a more pleasant, sometimes recreative period which she may have planned, to vary the curriculum.
Classroom Behavioral Changes
The major result of motivation in the READING class is the achievement of the child, resulting in a change in attitude and behavior in the classroom. A secondary result may be that remedial readers who are not in a class receiving help, may apply for such help. The remedial student who has tasted success and believes that it is possible for him to succeed is more tenacious in his pursuit of excellence than many grade level pupils who are content to “sustain average” work.
Arranging the Classroom to Increase Achievement
One of the areas of greatest concern, in regard to my own classroom, has always been the matter of arranging the classroom in such a way as to best help each child concentrate and develop good work habits. I have often put a few desks against a wall or in some other position away from the main work areas. To further isolate a child having difficulty concentrating, I have used chart stands to make partitions between desks.
One year I decided to go one step further and experiment with a more permanent partitioned study area. I placed a library table in a back corner of the room and around it I constructed a lightweight wooden frame work with six divisions. From the top poles, I hung sheer but still opaque fabric which was weighted on the bottom with wooden rods.
No child is seated in this area permanently. As much as possible, the use of this area is left to the discretion of the child. Of course, I make suggestions to children who I think really need to use it. The children enjoy this privacy and are quite eager to have the privilege of having an “office” to themselves.
The atmosphere in the room during the reading period is definitely quieter and more conductive to study with use of this device and the children’s work has shown marked improvement. This is also useful when most of the class has completed the assigned work but a few still need a settled environment to complete their work.
In using this, device, I hope the children can learn to concentrate and complete their work accurately and without delay. The ultimate goal is that the children will be able to work in any environment, regardless of distractions that may occur in the general classroom. I see this aid as being merely a help along the way.
Classroom management is tremendously important in teaching reading, and I’ll cover it more in teaching ENGLISH. Using such procedures as “feedback” charts for novels read, can be great time-savers for teachers. I put a chart up for each class, and as novels are read and evaluated by tests, essays, or oral reports. I record a grade under the names of the “suggested” novels. (I include lots of heading called “Free Choice” books.) By using this chart, my fast readers can “zoom” and I can easily keep track of all readers. They can also see which books they have read, and which ones are still required! I love the feedback charts, and later, I’ll explain how I used them in ENGLISH class.
The Importance of Praise
Praise is so important in a reading classroom because it encourages students to help themselves. The more you praise, the more the students will read, and the more they read, the better readers they will become! So your praise sometimes works “wonders”, and keeps students excited and enthusiastic!
Teaching READING is fun because all sorts of opportunities and paths can be taken. Those kids who “can’t read or who hate to read” can be brought around to “love to read”. There are many books written on the field of reading, but this is one which I feel will be helpful and unique one which I hope a reading teacher in junior or high school can pick up, read, and use as a guide in the classroom a tool, not a dust catcher. I sincerely hope you find it an aid to helping your students discover that happiness is reading, and reading is the heart of education.
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