Getting Children Involved in Reading

To get readers engaged and LOVING reading there are multiple different techniques I find myself using almost everyday. First things first, I like to get students excited by acting excited about my own reading. I will tell them stories about my reading experiences either the night before or over the weekend, and I will express how important reading is in my life and how it can be in theirs! I find allowing my students to write about their reading really helps them become involved in the text. When they have the opportunity to express their ideas and theories through writing, I get a better sense of how in-depth they are truly reading and how I can fix this. Another thing I enjoy doing to get readers REALLY involved is to get them interested in their characters. This can be through drawing pictures of their characters, making character trait charts, story arcs about the character changes, relating the character to another character or person they may know, etc. This is something that helps me personally as a reader and I remember learning about as a kid. 

   One thing I have been struggling with and working on as a first year teacher is trying to find the just right books for students. I know that many of them have books they love so it isn't a problem, but then I have a select few who can't seem to find a book they can stick with. The method I have been using to fix this issue is to have students tell me their top three genres they like to read. From there I will get 2 books within each genre at their reading level and help them figure out which book will keep them interested and read a blurb of the story to them to see if they like the writing style. As I continue teaching I want to become more comfortable getting readers engaged, I want to learn new strategies to help students be the best reader they can. I have a few general tricks I use, but reading over other blog posts I have heard some wonderful ideas that I plan to implement!