Reflecting on our Reading Culture
Home Reading Program (currently values Quantity over Quality and Content)
Our school has a long tradition of a Home Reading Program (HRP), which was established by a previous TL. For every 30 nights of reading (10+ min for primary students, 20+ min for intermediate), students can return the recording sheet and receive a sticker to put on their achievement certificates. These certificates are primarily used for the HRP, but other teachers can use the certificates for other achievements, such as public speaking, sports participation, etc. I encourage my students to participate in the HRP. It’s part of their daily homework, and when a student earns a sticker, I announce it to the class as a special message and we give that student a round of applause. Usually at the beginning of the school year, the majority of students participate and most will earn at least 2 stickers. However, somewhere around the middle of the school year, participation seems to dissipate. Daily reminders, more enthusiastic announcements don’t seem to spark sustained interest.
While I believe a HRP is important, I do think this one could use some revitalization. For example, instead of students receiving stickers for 30 nights of reading, perhaps it could be genrefied or themed. Perhaps when a student has read a certain number of animal books, they could receive a sticker for “Wild Reading.” Another possible sticker could be “Crazy for Comics” after reading graphic novels. Other ideas include “Once Upon a Book” for fairy tales and folk lore, “Raven Tales” for indengenous stories, and “Pride Proud” for LGBTQ+ related books. I don’t think I would put a limit on how many times a student can earn a specific sticker, as eventually the available books for that theme will run out and students who don’t want to re-read the same books over and over will hopefully find another genre they are interested in. Online readings about creating a reading culture in schools repeatedly state that students need to read for pleasure (“A school-wide reading culture”, n.d.; Wilson et al., 2020), which is another reason to allow students to choose their own reading theme, even if they have already completed that challenge.
This idea does require that the SLLC is genrefied, which ours is currently not. This would require a major overhaul of our resources’ organization, which will probably be highly time consuming.
Sustained Reading Enjoyment (or more blandly known as Silent Reading)
Our school does not have a school-wide policy for any scheduled reading time such as DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) or USSR (Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading). As a classroom teacher, my students and I have a reading routine built into our day- we have a play-first lunch break, and when students return to our room, they eat their lunch and then go straight into their reading. I have no directives regarding what books they choose to read during this time- they can read a book from home, a book from the SLLC, a book from my classroom library, or reading digital books using one of our 3 class iPads. I used to have a classroom reading nook with comfy chairs, cushions, and rugs but unfortunately our district’s COVID protocols have banned the use of fabric items for both the 2021 and 2022 school years. However, I encourage my students to find a comfortable spot somewhere in our room, and on days with good weather, we read outside under the trees near our classroom.
I’d like to see a dedicated school-wide reading block, even if it was only for 10 minutes and only a few days a week. I did suggest this to our school administration and staff a few years ago, but it was deemed difficult to fit into the schedule. I’ll be moving to a new school for the next school year, so I hope that the staff there will be more receptive.
Book Promotions (Advertise!)
The only book promotions that our current TL does are creating book displays for new books or certain holiday/event themes. However, due to limited space (in the past) and/or seismic upgrade construction (currently until end of 2023), the only place that these displays are located are on top of the book shelves. As a short adult, these displays are above my natural sight line, which means that for my students (8-9 years old) and anyone younger, it is unlikely that they will notice the books at all. The temporary space that the SLLC is currently located has a magnetic whiteboard by the entrance door as I think the whiteboard could become a display board- pictures of the book covers for the current themes. The whiteboard could also be used to display student recommendations- rotate the student recommendations once a month and have representation from the primary and intermediate grades, as well as the English and French Immersion programs.
The temporary space also has a window which looks out onto a high traffic zone in our school corridor. This window could become a display area for the new books- set the books on the window sill looking outwards.
I also like the idea of book promotions during school assemblies, as shown in the video by the National Library of New Zealand called “Creating a School-Wide Reading Culture” (embedded below). I think this would be appropriate at the elementary level, and could be promoted by either the administrators, TL or classroom teachers. Students who wish to could also practice their public speaking skills and promote a book during the assemblies. Excerpts even could be read aloud with a document camera to project the illustrations for picture books or graphic novels.
Reflect and Improve (as if we would do anything else)
As educators, we are constantly reflecting on our teaching practice. However, newer TLs may find building a reading culture to be a challenge- where should we begin? What should we be looking at as evidence to guide our reflections and improvements?
As I was preparing this blog post, I came across a reading culture review tool published by the National Library of New Zealand. There is one for primary (in Canada that would be elementary) schools, and another for secondary schools. The review tool outlines different areas for self-evaluation using a simple rubric. While I couldn’t use all of the the areas for my grade 3/4 classroom, the review tool was helpful as I engaged in my reflections for this post. I recommend looking at this particular tool to see if it can guide other TLs as they build and support reading cultures at their own school.
Works Cited/Referenced
A school-wide reading culture. National Library of New Zealand Te Puna MÄtauranga o Aotearoa. (n.d.). Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/a-school-wide-reading-culture.
Lee, L. (2020, February 12). Schoolwide strategies for promoting a love of reading. Edutopia. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/schoolwide-strategies-promoting-love-reading.
National Library of New Zealand. (2014, November 16). Creating a school-wide reading culture. YouTube. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://youtu.be/kiOZQFLTwmQ.
Wilson, C., Mario, M. D., & Clowrey, P. (2020, March 11). Ten ways to create a reading culture in your school. Resources for English Language Learners and Teachers | Pearson English. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://blog.pearsoninternationalschools.com/ten-ways-to-create-a-reading-culture-in-your-school/.
This is a thoughtful post filled with strong ideas on fostering a reading culture. I appreciate that you have included personal, reflective elements and have complemented this with outside reading and research. This questions particularly resonated with me - “What should we be looking at as evidence to guide our reflections and improvements?” What a great starting point for this important work.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your theme ideas for promoting your home reading program. It reminds me of something my colleague and I tried this year. My teaching team and I value student choice in selecting books. However, we noticed that many of our students were only reading books from the same series (Dogman) over and over again and weren't willing to try something different. We didn't want to discourage them from reading the same series, because they were still enjoying the books. So we decided to consider how we could get them excited about other books too. We create a Book Genre Bingo and challenged students to read a book from each of the genres on their bingo cards before the end of the school year. Some students have really enjoyed this challenge and have stepped outside of their comfort zone with books and explored new authors, series, and genres. I think this same excitement for a challenge would carry over to your sticker idea!
ReplyDeleteThanks Tara! And the BINGO cards sound like an even better idea than the genre based reading program list. Thanks for the idea!
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