The Culture of Literacy (cont.)
Making Independent Reading Nonnegotiable
A high volume of daily independent reading is one of strongest predictors of academic success. Help your students choose books that fit their interests. Provide them with conferences that encourage them to think critically about what they read. Read a book of your own with them, and model reading as a lifelong pleasure. Conferring with Students A classroom might have wonderful books and a cozy library corner, but that is not enough. Reading specialist Regie Routman (2002) points out that cutting back on direct, isolated skill instruction and allocating more time to independent reading—when properly supported with reading conferences—translates to improved scores on standardized tests. When you confer with readers, you can help them systematically employ specific skills and strategies and think about their own interactions with the book.
A meta-analysis found that social-emotional learning participants outperformed their peers academically, and that the benefits of social-emotional instruction may last for years. —Taylor et al., 2017
Social-Emotional Connections to Deepen Comprehension
In order to get students thinking—and talking— about books, teachers should ask them to focus on the characters and why they do the things they do. Researchers have specifically tied reading literary fiction to social and emotional growth, especially empathy. “What great writers do is to turn you into the writer. In literary fiction, the incompleteness of the characters turns your mind to trying to understand the minds of others,” explains researcher David Comer Kidd. Transferring the experience of reading fiction into real- world situations is a natural leap, Kidd argues, because “the same psychological processes are used to navigate fiction and real relationships. Fiction is not just a simulator of social experience, it is a social experience” (The Guardian, 2013). Linking Reading and Writing As students come to see themselves as writers, they will be interested in models that they can use to make their own words sing. Students think more critically and creatively about new books when they explore them together, and “writing in response to text has been shown to have a positive effect on reading comprehension” (Graham and Hebert, 2011).
All students need enormous quantities of successful reading to become independent, proficient readers. —Atwell, 2007; Worthy and Roser, 2010; Miller, 2013
4 scholastic.com/classroomlibraries
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