As an English teacher, it’s pretty safe to assume I am an avid reader. I read everyday for my job, but for pleasure, too. It has been that way since I can remember. My parents used to tuck me into bed and when the lights were down, I would grab the flashlight and read comic books under the sheets. Dad was also a reader, too, with a few bookcases packed with sci-fi novels from the giants like Asimov, Niven, Simak, Heinlein, and Gibson. I would take those books off the shelf, and even when I didn’t understand the words, I pretended to read them like a grown-up. Maybe you have similar experiences.
From that young age, I had a voracious hunger for reading, and gorged on everything. Eventually, that hunger turned into a vocation defined by taste: English teaching. I recognized the classics, was able to separate the junk from the gems, and could build cases to defend these evaluations.
Today’s kids are starving, but they don’t even know that they’re hungry. According to a survey by University of Virginia professor Daniel T. Willingham, while the average American teenager has around 5 hours of leisure time everyday, they only spend roughly 6 minutes of it reading. He says, “most unmotivated readers have the self-assurance to persuade themselves that reading is not all that important.” And the amount of technology accessible to our students has caused a shift in their expectations for what they consider worthy of their time. “Digital technology has changed expectations -- made kids believe something must be worthy of their attention to maintain it. With technology, kids get an experience immediately with minimal effort…[They] have the continuous, nagging suspicion that ‘there must be a better way to spend my time than this.’”
Of course, this leaves the classroom teacher with a conundrum. How do we get our students to embrace reading when its benefits are not as immediate as those they receive from video games, Tweets, Instagram photos, or a Buzzfeed photo gallery about the 10 Hottest Celebrities? One of the longest standing suggestions is to use Sustained Silent Reading, in which a teacher sets aside instructional time for students to engage in reading something they choose.
Yet, going all the way back to 2000, the National Reading Panel (NRP), sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), released a seminal study that seemed to put nails in SSR’s coffin. Even today, the echoes of the NRP’s study reverberate as SSR is removed from the classroom and more focus is placed on explicit instruction. Now, the NRP -- a panel composed of several educators and researchers across the country -- didn’t exactly state that SSR was a bad idea. They leaned against it, though, claiming there wasn’t enough causal data to support its inclusion as a component of quality literacy instruction. The key word in that sentence is causal, which requires experiments that show a direct relationship between SSR and student growth in reading. Unfortunately, with all the variables that influence a person’s ability to read, both internal and environmental, it is nearly impossible to get anything better than correlative results.
But there are lots of correlative findings out there. The work of Allington & McGill-Franzen (2003), Gambrell (2007), Krashen (2001), Trelease (2001), Stahl (2004), and Berliner (1981) all support the idea that when implemented effectively, SSR has the ability to support student improvement in reading. The National Assessment for Educational Progress stated: “The more you read, the better your vocabulary, your knowledge of the world, your ability to read and so on…”
And of course, our common sense tells us this as well. If you read a lot, you will become a better reader. After all, that’s what happened to us. I am the reader I am today because of all those late nights sneaking out on adventures with Spiderman and Daredevil as written by Peter David and Frank Miller.
Yet, there is another key word we have to address if we are to advocate for the restoration of SSR to our ELA program. That word is “effectively.” How do we “effectively” implement SSR in our classrooms? Anyone who believes you just need to set aside 10 minutes a day and throw books at the kids like fish at a group of otters is probably not going to see very good results, and waste lots of time in the process. There are 5 components to an effective SSR program:
1. Know your students
A teacher needs to know what interests her kids. Will Adrianna prefer a teen gothic romance like Twilight, or is she into classics like The Stranger? Is Malik interested in social issues explored by Walter Dean Myers, or does he want to explore the socio-psychological ideas of Malcolm Gladwell? And what about Dean? He rides his skateboard all over the place, but does that mean he wants to read a biography about Tony Hawk? It might be possible he actually wants to visit Middle Earth and fantasize about eating with hobbits. When we know our kids, we can help them find the books that will appeal to them, especially if they are reluctant readers.
2. Students choose their own books
Even though you are there to help kids find books, the ultimate choice should be theirs. If it turns out they don’t like the book, they should be able to put it aside and try something else. SSR is more about pleasure reading, not academic reading. When kids have autonomy, they have buy-in. And if we are to combat the immediate gratification/minimal effort belief system that seems to plague them (and us, if we are to be truly honest with ourselves), the only way for our students to attain that desired end is to pick their (nourishing) poison.
3. Teachers must get involved
One of the biggest criticisms of SSR is that students sit in their seats pretending to read. It’s a fair criticism, especially of teachers who do not pay attention to their students’ behavior. Again, you can’t expect to throw books at a group of kids and they will magically become better readers. It is integral we teach them, even during SSR. Walk around, monitor, answer questions (“What does this word mean?” “I don’t get it…”), and take some time to read what the kids are reading. I know that’s a Herculean suggestion, what with the millions of other tasks a teacher has to do, but nothing creates more buy-in for a kid than knowing you cared enough to take interest in what they are doing. Even if it means looking up the book on SparkNotes just so you have a couple questions to ask might make all the difference between getting a kid to read a book and getting her to love reading.
4. Create a community of readers
When Oprah Winfrey was dominating afternoon television, she was also dominating the New York Times bestseller list. On her show, she motivated millions of viewers to read the books she recommended. She called it the “Oprah Book Club,” and hundreds of chapters popped up across the country. Reading may be a private experience most of the time, but it is most rewarding when it is shared. Our students, most of whom have multiple social media accounts already, understand this well. So, we should use it to our advantage. Have students read the same book in groups. Make time for book talks at the end of the week. Encourage students to open accounts on GoodReads and share their experiences with the added bonus that GoodReads will suggest other titles they might like of which they hadn’t previously heard. There’s also an added bonus for us as well: it provides a means to hold them accountable for the reading they do during class time!
5. Students must reflect on their own progress and growth
The person who needs to hold a student most accountable is not the teacher, it is the student. A good SSR program should have built into it a reflection component. Students should have a means upon which to write about their experience reading, not just in terms of their enjoyment, but in terms of their perceived growth. This sort of metacognition is essential to their development, not just as readers, but as people.
Despite the “research based” ideas that SSR is an ineffective practice, both common sense and academic studies show us that when implemented with care and precision, SSR is a powerful tool in the teacher’s box.
Sources:
Garan, Elaine M., and Glenn DeVoogd. "The benefits of sustained silent reading: scientific research and common sense converge: once teachers unravel the facts from the misinterpretations and opinions, they will find that Sustained Silent Reading is not only intuitively appealing but also is supported by research." The Reading Teacher 62.4 (2008): 336+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Shaw, Michael L. "Sustained silent reading: another view." Reading Today 24.1 (2006): 16. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Willingham, Daniel T. "For the love of reading: engaging students in a lifelong pursuit." American Educator 39.1 (2015): 4+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
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