How to Get Students Reading Every Day

IDEA 1: Include Short Texts

Provide short texts to begin class each day, perhaps with a turn-and-talk question to end the reading.
Use the texts as an introduction to a lesson.
Create short reading breaks to encourage engagement and recapture attention.
Place students in small groups with one student responsible for a “current event short take” each day.
Choose a longer article or an article with sections and have students read one part each day, concluding with some sort of activity- whole class discussion, writing assignment, WebQuest etc…

Choose a book such as The Martian for science class (Agriculture, Horticulture, Botany, Engineering, Geology, Physics) or When Justice Fails: The David Milgaard Story in Social Studies/Law class.
Make reading interesting by ending class with stories from books related to subject areas such as Mathematical Curiosities: A Treasure Trove of Unexpected Entertainments in math class
Read excerpts from texts you are currently reading related to your subject area.
Start a classroom library so students can access texts about your discipline (we can help with titles!)
Read particularly difficult passages/sections along with the class. Show annotations (including notes/questions etc.) on the screen to model “during reading” strategies.
Surprise students with unexpected read-alouds that relate your content - poems/ song lyrics; children’s picture books; photo essays etc.

Questions to ask when Interpreting a Visual Text:

Access blogs from credible sources and experts in the field.
Show students a reputable blog site related to your discipline and explain that a blog’s major function is to communicate for the purpose. of informing, interacting with, or persuading a large number of people.
Provide two blogs with opposing sides of an issue and ask students to read each listing the arguments each writer makes. Students can work together and create t-charts or Venn diagrams to show the similarities and differences in the blogger’s point of view etc.
Have students annotate a blog by “marking up the text”. They can highlight words they are unfamiliar with, record ideas and ask questions.
Have students explore a “blog a week”.

The text you select for close reading should be short but challenging, and it should be complex enough to engage students over multiple readings.

The purpose of close readings is to focus on comprehension, making meaning through careful and thoughtful examination of the text.

Make sure you provide enough background information and contextual vocabulary to ease frustration, and it is often helpful to read the first paragraph aloud with the class.

Have students SCAN the text first and talk about what they notice immediately.
Have students break the text into sections/chunks.
As they read each section, have them ANNOTATE the text, by:
1. Circling or highlight concepts or words with which they are unfamiliar
2. Underline anything they find confusing or they have questions
3. Put brackets around the best sentence or phrase in the text
4. Write notes in the margin or on sticky notes
After each section, have students discuss in small groups what they annotated.
Once this has been done for all sections of a text, have the students work together to answer questions similar to those below
1. What questions or confusion do you still have about the text?
2. What 3 points would you like to make to author?
3. If there were a follow-up article, what would you like addressed?
4. Which section did you find the most difficult? Why?
5. What is the author’s best sentence?
Have the groups post their answers and discuss as a class.

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