Reading Enrichment/Enjoyment Unit

Reading Enrichment/Enjoyment Activities

At the beginning of the year, we encourage our students to visit the library for the enjoyment of reading a good book. Currently, we have a “Book Talk” program that we use with our “non-reader” students. When I say that these students are “non-readers", I mean that they are students who generally do not read for pleasure or for teachers! One of the reasons they avoid reading is because they are reading at lower levels than many of their peers. We have selected a variety of high interest books to grab these students and get them interested in reading. Many of the books we selected for this program have sequels. We hope that they will be interested enough in the first book to continue reading the rest of the sequels.

We start the Book Talk with a personal survey. Each student completes a survey about their interests. Then, we take these surveys and tailor the books that we will assign each student in hopes of finding a book that they will enjoy. We also try to assign at least two or three students per book so that they can talk with each other about the books. The point of this program is to get the students reading, we don’t test them or put pressure on them. Simply put, we find a book that we think they will enjoy and the teacher provides class time for them to read.

After two weeks, we put the students into groups according to the books they’ve read and give them discussion questions. This is where they get to have their book talk. They can talk about the book and they each answer the questions provided. The teacher gives them a 100 if they know enough about the book to discuss the questions. So, there is some incentive for those students who are driven by grades. In fact, the teachers usually offer extra credit for the students who continue reading. They choose a book, and then discuss with one of the media specialists to get extra credit. We keep up with the students who are in the program each semester and inform the teachers as they continue reading.

We have found this program to be extremely successful. Most of the students involved tell us that they really enjoyed the books they read. There are always a few who don’t like the books we choose for them; we always tell them to pick out another book if they don’t find the book interesting. In fact, our circulation of these books has increased so dramatically that we had to order at least 5 more of each book and keep some of them off the main shelves so that we have enough to go around for the students in the program each semester. The only downside is that these high interest books are the most frequently lost or stolen books in the library collection.

Each year we try to add a few books to the list. We also pull other books from the shelf depending on the student interests. We are very flexible in how we assign the books.

Next year, we are adding a new component to this program. We are going to reach out to other subjects and higher level readers. For example, we plan on using Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer as an enrichment book for our environmental science classes. This is about how life on Earth would change if our moon were knocked out of orbit. Environmental and sociological principles permeate this book and spark great discussions for students.

Many teachers (other than English teachers) admit that they don’t have time to meet the Reading Standard for their areas:

GPS SCSh9 – Students will read a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books per year from a variety of subject disciplines and participate in discussions related to curricular learning in all areas.

I think that this new component to our Book Talk program will be helpful in meeting this often ignored standard.