Whispering, rustling. My “teacher ears” perk up. While conferencing about a self-selected reading book with one student, my eyes scan the rest of the class for the source. Initially all seems well and I refocus on the student sitting across from me. A minute later, again, whispers and an undercurrent of restless movement. When I scan the room two or three of my sixth grade students meet my gaze and immediately return to their silent reading. Another student is up getting a tissue, but extending her path to pass behind her friend’s chair. I use eye contact to signal her to make a better choice. She nods. Two students are at the front of the room perusing the bookshelves and another is scanning the books on the display wall. These are all acceptable behaviors – I want students to visit the books and select an intriguing text for their silent reading time. So what feels wrong?
Each day during Monitored Reading time (MR), I conference with individual students while the rest of the class reads silently. However, I begin to note that the same students repeatedly need to visit the bookshelves. Are they selecting thin books and finishing them quickly? Or are they not engaging in the chapter book they select and so they need to look for a new one? I try to conference with these students and determine what they are doing. They have similar responses: “I finished the XXX story so I was choosing a short story (or another book) for a change.” I remind students that they should take more of the thin books to their desks so they won’t need to get up as often. With smiles they appear to want to comply, but the sense of restlessness in the class in growing. The students who seem to be restless have been less successful in their conferences with me, too. They don’t ‘know’ their story as well. They cannot talk about characterization or plot or even summarize what they just read. I need to help them find their way into books.
I reach out to the other teachers … Each teacher is having some difficulty motivating students to select books for reading enjoyment. They each have different concerns, but the theme is common: although there are students who consistently read silently and remain on-task, there are too many students who cannot find a book to engage in and frequently these students disrupt others. So my question becomes how to learn from my engaged students what it is that they do. If I can unlock some of their strategies, maybe the students who need more help finding books to enjoy can learn from the students who are successful. In my first class I started by asking students to check off a frequency survey of activities they do during the Monitored Reading time: look around, talk to others, stay on task, easily choose a book, have trouble selecting a book, have trouble getting started in a book, I do (or do NOT) finish reading the whole book… Thank goodness they were honest because that allowed me to do follow up conferences with the students which led to many discoveries about how students choose books.
I begin to explore by asking, “How do you select a monitored reading book?” If I can identify the methods the students use, and especially the successful students’ techniques, that will be a beginning. The students’ responses to my question identify the traditional methods of previewing a book: look at the title, read the back, see if it looks interesting. These are the most cited methods. Students also choose an author or series they know, or a genre they enjoy. A few say they go by a friend’s recommendation or a class book talk. At first, I don’t really feel like I know anything about their book selections from their responses until I reread the responses and look at how many techniques they employ in selecting a book. Most students use three or less criteria to select their book. But the students who used four or more criteria to select their books are my most on-task students. How do they know what they need to know about a book to select it? I discuss with Alex* what he does to select his books because on the survey, he reports that he has trouble selecting a book he will like and also that he finds it hard to get started in a book. When I look at what he does to select a book, it seems he only looks at the title or cover and determines if it is interesting – but he cannot explain what interesting means to him. We discuss the importance and benefit of using more techniques, but Alex stubbornly asserts that these ideas do not apply to him.
I then conference with another student — Eddie* reports that he stays on task, rarely talks and never turns around – these comments match my observations. Eddie also indicates that he rarely has trouble selecting a book he likes and he never finds it hard to get started in a book. This seems to be the report of a successful student; that is confirmed by our discussions in conference. He always knows his books and demonstrates understanding of the literature. I am therefore confounded by his response to another survey question: Eddie reports he “rarely finishes reading the whole book.” When we conference, I discuss this with Eddie. He flushes and puts his eyes down, but then picks up his head to make eye contact and, like lifting a great weight from his shoulders, says that he just can’t find a book that stays interesting all the way through. It will “start out good”, but then it lets him down. When I look at the techniques Eddie uses to select a book to read, he only uses four criteria: he looks at the title or cover and at the cover picture. He also chooses a book a friend recommends or sees if it looks interesting. He is unable to be very specific as to what makes the book “interesting” beyond the type or font of the print. Eddie also reports that he only sometimes reads the first page or paragraph, or looks for a series he knows. In our conferences, we discuss other techniques Eddie can employ to find a book that he will enjoy to the end. He sets as his goal for the last part of the school year to successfully complete a novel. We will continue to conference and discuss how successful he is with this goal.
In conferences I ask a third student, Drew, about his book reading and we discuss how fulfilling it is to finish the story he starts. Then we talk about how he selects a book and it appears he uses a wide variety of strategies to preview his selection. When I look at his responses on the survey “When I select a book to read I:” Drew has almost everything checked off in the ‘always’ and ‘usually’ columns. He always looks at the pictures, reads the back and the first page or paragraph. He also looks for a series or a genre he likes and always looks for a setting or subject he is interested in. Drew reports that he usually looks for an author he knows and skims through the book. He even looks at the format of the writing – whether it is poetry, letter style, short chapters or other structures.
When I examine the students who report the most satisfaction during Monitored Reading and look at what they do to select a book to read, I begin to see many correlations. The students who use more techniques to select a book are also staying engaged during MR and, according to my conference notes, they know their books better. Recognizing that there is a problem is at least the first part of solving that problem.
Through these discussions, a picture emerges of what an engaged reader does to choose a book. From these ideas we created a chart that every student keeps in his/her Monitored Reading notebook on “How to Choose a Book.”