10 Principles of Teaching Reading

1. Get to know your Students as Readers

I think that it is important to get to know your students as readers. In many of my
college courses we talked about ways to do so. A few of those ideas came from Nancie
Atwell. One idea that stuck out to me was her idea of tossing a beach ball around that is
covered in funny get-to-know-you questions. She covered the ball with “non-threatening
personal questions” in order to get to know her new students. This would be an
awesome way to get to know the likes and dislikes of your students. By knowing things
that they like or don’t like, it allows for us as teachers to get an idea of the types of
books they may enjoy reading based on their hobbies. It also could show us their
background of reading, depending on the questions one would put on the ball. Atwell
then assigns homework to the students that is designed to get an idea of what the
students like to read, where they like to read, what they need from her in order to learn,
etc.
In my classroom I would love to begin with icebreakers that teach me fun/silly
things about my students before we go straight into why we do or why we don’t like to
read. I think if I know random facts about my students I will be well-equipped to offer
books that are appealing to my students who claim to not like reading.

2. Regular Reading is Essential

Regular reading is essential to a student’s progression and development of
learning how to read as well as being able to actively learn and participate in class. This
principle comes from Nancie Atwell’s “In the Middle”. She talks about how her reading
homework is preparation for the fun activities and in-class work she implements. When
students come to her class not having done the reading, they are unable to participate
in class and sometimes stay in from recess in order to complete it. Atwell says “When
reading isn’t happening at home, the focus of my meeting with the student and parents
is why: Is there no obvious time or place to read at home...Does the family not
understand the importance of voluminous reading to the child’s future?” Kylene Beers
agrees, she claims in her book “When Kids can’t Read” that “[Teachers] who recognize
that students become better readers by reading, not merely practicing reading skills,
increase students’ opportunity for developing a positive attitude toward reading,
improving fluency, for improving vocabulary, and for improving comprehension.” So to
Beers, nightly reading is essential to a student’s success in becoming an independent
reader.
I love the idea that Nancy Atwell presents; meeting with the parents to set up a
specific schedule for their child to take the time and read nightly. She says that she
only does this when there becomes a pattern from the student coming to class without
their homework done, but I think it could work to talk to the parents beforehand and let
them know that I expect their child (my student) to read each night. Beers also offers for
teachers to provide multiple opportunities to read aloud to students, allow time for them
to silent read in class, let them read to each other, etc. Anything to let them read to
become better readers; I plan on doing all of the above in my classroom!

3. Generate Excitement about Reading

Donalyn Miller was one of the biggest advocates in our readings from this
semester for getting students excited about reading. She offered SO many ways to do
so. Some of my favorite ideas include: sharing our own passion for reading (as the
teacher), set/track/celebrate reading goals, book speed-dating, book talks from both the
class and the teacher, book trailers, literature circles, read alouds, and SO many more.
Miller says that “readers choose what to read and when to stop reading a book that
doesn’t live up to its potential...The important thing is not to let a bad book choice slow
down your momentum for reading.” I think that is great advice that I will push forward
into my own classroom. I think by telling students that they do not have to finish reading
something that is boring, it will show them that they can sample books and find things
that they truly enjoy reading instead of wasting their time being bored with a book they
no longer want to read.
4. Writing about Reading
All aboard the Nancie Atwell train! I’ve used her ideas the most so far in these
principles, but I like them the best if we are being honest. Anyway, this principle is
geared towards getting the students to think and respond as critics through the letter
essays that Atwell proposes in her writings. The letter essays allow for the students to
practice their critical thinking while reading by rating the book, summarizing that main
character’s problem, comparing the author to other authors, sharing the narrative voice
and genre, and analyzing a small excerpt. It also helps the students to care about the
assignment when they know that Nancie and their friends are going to be responding to
the letter-essays. Kylene Beers says “Reading is a social process, an interactive
activity, one in which readers create meaning through transactions--interactions with the
text, their prior knowledge, the context, and other readers.” These letter essays provide
an opportunity to do just that.
I plan on stealing the letter essay ideas in my classroom and do it in place of a
book report. In my high school career each quarter we were required to read at least
500 pages and do a book report at the end of that quarter. I like the idea of having 500
pages to read, but instead of a book report, I think I would have the students write me a
letter essay for me to respond to. This way they get to choose the book they were most
excited about, and have a chance to share with me what they enjoyed, their take on the
book, etc. and get a response from me.

5. Tracking Independent Reading in Progress

Kylene Beers says that “the more a reader reads, the more her reading rate will
improve. So, students in classrooms that provide big blocks of time for sustained silent
reading, as well as home environments that encourage home reading, show more gains
in reading rate.” As I talked about a lot in principle number two, the more students read
the better at reading they become. This principle focuses on how to keep track of that
progress. Beers suggests ways to determine a student’s silent reading rate by first
choosing books that are at their independent reading level and providing a brief
summary for background knowledge. Have the student read silently for one minute, stop
them, have them count the words they read, and repeat it two more times to get the
average words read per minute. On top of the reading, we as teachers should ask the
students comprehension questions. She also suggests ways to determine oral reading
rate and fluency.
As far as how this would look in my classroom, I would allow for independent
silent reading a few times a week. If I did have a dependent reader in my class, Beers’
ideas to determine silent reading rate would benefit me and that student completely
because I would know if my classroom reading time is helping this student improve. It
would also benefit the student because the better they become at silent reading, the
better they are as oral readers. I would also want to determine that student’s oral
reading rate as well by doing something tracking their words per minute read orally.

6. Promoting Discussions
When students are leading the discussions, it keeps the discussion focused on
them instead of being directed in a certain way by the teacher. I believe that teachers
should work off of the student led discussion. In one of my college courses, I learned
that the person firing (speaking) is also wiring (learning). A Socratic Seminar video I
watched claims the same thing; the person asking questions and speaking is also the
person that is learning. So if the teacher is the one directing discussions, they are not
providing the greatest opportunities for their students to learn.
I would want to do something similar to the socratic seminar video, giving
students each a job so everyone is participating in the discussion in some way. That
way of directing discussion would require each student to come prepared to participate,
and it would also engage each student. If I had a smaller class that did not have enough
students to fill out all of those jobs, I would do something similar to that first video and
allow my students to direct the discussion. I would tell them in advance that the
discussion is all theirs, I will just be there to pick up where they fall a little short and to
challenge certain topics, etc. This will require them to also come prepared to class
knowing ahead of time they are responsible for the discussions.
7. Young Readers -- A Process
I chose this as a principle because I think that it is important to understand the
stages of reading development that all readers go through, regardless of the age group
someone will be teaching. I will be qualified to teach 5th grade through 12th grade and
sometimes 5th graders are reading at a much lower level than their peers, so it is
important to be prepared. Kylene Beers is the one who spoke most about the process of
young readers learning to read. It is important to support those developing readers by
using strategies such as picking books that are appropriate to their reading level,
coaching them on ways to work through parts of the books they do not understand. For
example, using the sticky note trick where they write down where they got confused, re-
reading, summarizing, making predictions/inferences, etc. For students in the upper
level grades, it is important to expose them to more difficult vocabulary, and teach them
strategies about how to analyze literature.
At this point in my career I am unsure about what grade I want to teach exactly,
but I plan to take these strategies to support developing readers and implement them
where they need to be implemented. I think conferencing with my students individually,
keeping track of their reading progress on reading days, and offering times for them to
read aloud in class will give me an opportunity to assess where they are in their reading
stage and give me insight into where they need work.

8. Teaching Reading VS. Teaching Books

Gerald G. Duffy explains that we must first choose a strategy to teach, say
inferences, and then pick a text to employ that strategy. This is important to remember
as we are not teaching books, but we are teaching standards and there is not a
standard for say, “The Great Gatsby” or any book in fact. It seems like an easy thing to
forget as a teacher. Duffy also gives a step by step example about how to go about
teaching reading instead of teaching books. He says that once you have chosen a
strategy to teach and picked a text to employ it, you next need to describe the objective,
explain how students will learn it, share secrets and skills for mastering concept, model
the thinking, guide text dissection/lead questions, work as a class to dissect the text
while giving students more responsibility, allow students to do all dissection on their
own, and then finally continue to follow these steps in future lessons. Teaching the
reading and analysis is more important than teaching the book because the same
strategies follow us in each book we read, while one book is focused on a certain topic
that will not be helpful to learn and continue reading other books that have opposing
topics.
In my future classroom I need to remember that I am teaching reading and not
teaching books. I plan to refer back to Duffy’s steps of explaining reading because I
want to give my future students the tools and skills they need in order to read any type
of book they want to or will ever need to read.

9. Talking about Texts During Reading

Kylene Beers’ chapter 7 “During Reading Strategies” is an important piece of
reading because it aids in comprehension. She says that “often struggling readers
struggle because while they read, their eyes move over the words but their minds move
to thoughts of weekend plans, last night’s phone conversations, or after-school sports
events.” In order to get students to comprehend what they are reading, we as teachers
need to help keep them on track. Beers offers a few ways of doing so such as a during-
reading strategy called “Say Something”. This strategy forces students (while reading in
groups) to read aloud and stop to say something about what they are reading. This
could be a prediction, a summary, anything relating to comprehension.
In my classroom I would like to do things like this in order to get my students to
want to read and also make sure that they are actually understanding what they are
reading instead of just turning pages and scanning words. I would offer the sticky note
idea from the “Again and Again” lesson. Students would write down things they do not
understand, any questions they have about the reading, etc. and have them fill out the
whole sticky note. This way they are forced to remain paying attention and begin
practicing active reading.

10. Talking about Reading After Reading

 Beers’ chapter eight discusses strategies to implement after reading. Similar to
pre-reading strategies, after reading strategies are important in the comprehension
process. The after reading strategies encourage students to clarify what has confused
them, connect their readings to personal experiences or other texts, summarize what
they have read, see causal connections within the text, make inferences and draw
conclusions, etc. Beers offers an example of an after reading strategy titled, “Somebody
Wanted But So”. This is another strategy I am stealing! It is having the students identify
who the somebody is from the reading, what that somebody wanted, but what
happened to keep something from happening, and so, finally, how everything works out
(or doesn’t). She explains that we as teachers should offer an example of how you
create a Somebody Wanted But So statement first. This strategy could also be used to
teach students about point of view as they choose different characters in the Somebody
column. In my classroom I would love to use this strategy to help the after reading
comprehension and also to aid in the teaching of point of view, depending on the grade
I am teaching at the time. I think understanding point of view is a great way to be able to
comprehend a text completely.