Friday, October 6, 2017
Getting children engaged in reading
There are many ways I try to engaged readers in my classroom. One way is with great read alouds. I find that this helps peek their interest in books. Through read alouds they begin to see that books are not boring or even a source for a stress. I also tend to become very excited about books when I read to my students. I hope that my enthusiasm encourages them to become more engaged as they read. I also model any strategies we are learning when I read to encourage them to also use them. Another way I engage readers is by having lots of books available for them to choose. This includes books that are at their reading level that are on topics or characters they are interested in. I have by working on adding many new books into my classroom library the past few years. I find that reading groups increase engagement because I can guide my students to recognize what they already know and help teach them strategies for any road blocks they may hit as they read.
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I love read-alouds and agree that it is a great way to peek students curiosity about reading and authors. I'm currently reading "The Tale of Despereaux" and my fourth graders are loving it. I also remember my 5th grade teacher who read to us almost every day. It was incredibly influential in my love of reading.
ReplyDeleteI love reading aloud to my students and there are days when they practically beg me to read to them. I love to see their faces light up when they come into class and find out I will be starting with read aloud. I always use my read alouds for the purpose of teaching reading skills. I share my favorites, grade-level texts, and different genres. I think just the fact that I am reading to them engages them and shows them that reading is fun!
ReplyDeleteI too love to watch students during read alouds. I see so much engagement and enthusiasm as they are listening, predicting and becoming invested in the plot and characters. I get so excited when I finish a read aloud and a student asks, "Can I read it?" I have a separate book shelf in my library area where I place my read aloud books, these are often the books children seek out when we have any free time in our classroom.
ReplyDeleteI find read alouds very powerful as well. I have very fond memories of my teachers constantly reading a book series to us. I like to pursue that with my students as well. We just finished up "The Witches" by Roald Dahl and it gave me such great joy to hear them say, "NOOOO!" when I had to stop reading for the day. It proved how powerful read alouds can be and how they can introduce students to new authors, series, or topics.
ReplyDeleteEven in 8th and 9th grade, I’ve found read alouds to be successful too. It gives us the opportunity to read some challenging, engaging writing that is above their independent grade level. Since we read and go through it together, it feels reasonable to students to do the challenging work since it’s a team effort.
ReplyDelete*independent reading level
DeleteDue to schedules this year and swapping kids, read alouds are not fitting into my schedule as much this year, unless it's a text to go with my writing lesson. This is a huge bummer, because I too LOVE reading aloud to my students. It is probably one of my favorite things. I agree, you can defiantly pull in kids by reading aloud, and doing the voices, asking questions. I find even my struggling readers engage, and actually I find their comprehension is strong when listening to a story read by a fluent reader.
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