Getting Children Engaged with Reading- Traci

                    When I taught preschool I remember how many of the young preschoolers I worked with would seek out adults or peers to read with, while other students would almost never enter the library area or sit to listen to a story. Some of the things I did as a preschool teacher were to make sure that I had books all over the classroom and not just in the ‘library area’. I would place books about signs and construction in the block area and books about restaurants and foods in the kitchen area. I also placed some high preference books on shelves around the room. In preschool many children just needed an adult willing to sit with them and interact with a book to increase their interest. I also would ask every preschool to bring a book to the rug and we would talk about our books as a group, and I would guide them through some discovery. Another favorite was acting out the stories or retelling the stories with props in the sensory table.

                    This is my second year as a first grade teacher and last year I saw a high interest in Mo Williems books and Non-fiction books, so I have added more of these books to my library. I am continually looking for great read aloud books to share with my students. I also have a basket of ‘reading buddies’ (small stuffed animals) that students can read to.  I have found that allowing children time in our classroom library to look at and choose their own books (as well as including some of the just right leveled readers) increases my student’s interest and persistence during independent reading time.  I try to have conversations with students and families about their interest, and use these interests to help students choose books.    

Getting Students Engaged in Reading

My reading engagement story isn't about my students, it's about students in the community where I live. Earlier this fall I had the opportunity to watch and support my husband in a Community Read Aloud event. The local school worked with businesses in the downtown area to put on this event. Basically, the school provided books for area business and organization representatives to read to groups of families. My husband was representing the fire department. In many cases, the families were read to inside the businesses.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to witness this community event. I loved seeing all the kids so attentive to the reader and enjoying the books being read. The goal of this event was to get students and their families out into the community and enjoying reading together.

I would love to do something like this and already talked briefly about it with our school librarian. I think it would be cool to do an event like this around the Red Clover books.

Getting Children Engaged In Reading - Amy D

Getting my students engaged in reading books is key to their growth in reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. I have a few specific strategies that have worked well with 3-6 graders over the last few years to help them become life-long lovers of reading. My first focus is to have a library full of every kind of genre for every kind of reader. Not an easy task, because it's expensive and usually what I start with is someone's old and often out-dated library. I leave my library unorganized in the beginning of the year (except for my first year) and spend a week in chaos having students organize books and the library together. I have to admit that I go back and rearrange if things are too off afterwards. I love the discussions that erupt during this activity. "Oh, I want to read this book!" "Hey, Anna, this book is for you!" At the very least, it gives them ownership of the library and offers students an opportunity to become familiar with what's available. They might even find a book to start off the their year. A few other ways to gets engaged in books is to have a poster with author websites (they love to explore new websites, right?) where they can find out about authors and book series. My reluctant readers are best engaged when I spend time with them one-on-one talking about their interests and do book-walks through several books before deciding on one or two to choose from. My mini-lessons on choosing books, using a reading log, and writing about reading are so important for students. They discover how to choose books that aren't too hard. Seeing their own progress in how much they've read is encouraging and without writing about their reading, they might just be going through the motions of reading. Wow, this is not an easy task getting kids engaged in reading! But a task well worth the time and energy to see engaged, 'nose-in-the-book' readers in my classroom.

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.

Getting Children Engaged with Reading

  Last year with my reading group I gave them book options.  I never liked being told I had to read a specific book as a student.  I didn’t want to do that with my reading group.  I gave them three choices and they were actually all interested in all three books.  Since they were all interested in all of the books I let them vote on the order we would read the books in. With this reading group, as long as the books were level appropriate I gave them a lot of freedom in picking the books.  They were all reading the same book at the same time but they picked them together.  One of the students found a book in the classroom library and got the other students interested in reading it.  I went to other teachers and found enough copies for us to use in reading group.  Because of the control they felt in the book choice reading group always went very well and they were always invested in the book we were reading. 

  I have the same reading group as last year because of looping. They saw the book I was reading for this class and asked about it.  I told them what it was about and they all begged if it could be our next reading group book.  I hope to use it a little later in the year if I can get enough copies. 

Holly Palmer as a First/Second Grade Reader

I do not have too many memories of myself as a young reader, in terms of an age. I have great memories of the books and series I was invested in as a child. In first grade, I have a vivid memory of my teacher Mrs. Jones reading us the Junie B. Jones books for read alouds. I got hooked on those books and read almost everyone. I also have great memories of reading the Magic Tree House series. Specifically, I remember being so engaged that I brought some to an Atlanta Braves baseball game and read them there! I think that might be where my love for history stems from. I guess as an early reader, I mostly read book series. Thinking about it, my love for reading did not fully until middle school and then in college. In college, I was able to have a concentration in history, so I got to take SO many history classes that assigned amazing books.

In thinking of myself in my students' shoes, I was never a student who would spend hours reading at home. I enjoyed reading, but it didn't become a favorite activity of mine until I was much older. I always read right before bed, either with my parents or on my own, but that was usually the time when I would sit myself down to read.

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!