For educators, the crux of so much work centers around reading and literacy. Building successful readers matters deeply for teachers across every grade and every discipline. If a reader starts to fall behind, identifying the issue, targeting the correct instruction, and bringing them up to the appropriate level is critical. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching students to read, there is no contesting the incredible rewards ahead for students and teachers involved in this work.
For that reason, we’re excited to share the ideas of one reading specialist to inspire the hard work of others. Scholastic spoke with Washington D.C. Public School Teacher and Reading Specialist, Whitney Penalba, to learn about some tips derived from her many years in the classroom.
While she confirmed that each student and classroom can be highly unique, she shared several ideas to take reluctant readers to the next level.
For Kindergarten to 3rd Grade
These early years are formative — right up until 3rd grade, students are typically continuing to learn how to read. Students will acquire the ability to identify letters, decode letter sounds, blend sounds in a word, build a growing and proficient memory of spelling, and establish a large bank of sight words.
For reluctant readers up until the end of 2nd Grade, teachers might start with some of the approaches or interventions below:
Sort it Out: Divide students up into word sorts to allow them to categorize words according to specific features. Starting with simple concepts and progressing to more difficult ones, provide students with a list of words they can organize by sound. Word sorts can be used in so many different ways in the classroom, and building familiar practices can support your students as they utilize them to deal with increasingly complex material. Try these differentiated Word Sort activities to get started.
Read Aloud: Read a text that reinforces some of the sounds students tackled in the word sort. This should be brief to give students more time for their own reading during the class. Here are a few favorites to get started.
Mystery Words: This is a fun exercise to introduce new high-frequency words. Using a sample text that you read-aloud with the class, introduce students to clues about the mystery word in the text, including the number of letters it has, a letter the mystery word contains or even a specific sound. Students can work individually or in pairs to reference their copy of the text and identify the words that fit each clue. Celebrate solving the mystery with a final reading, asking students to clap every time the word is read.
Story Time: Best done one-on-one or in partner work, have students narrate a brief personal story to you while you write it down. Then you can work together to read it. Called “Write a Story to Read a Story,” this builds upon social interaction and collaboration to improve literacy learning.
Silly Sentences: For slightly older students, encourage them to use their imagination to come up with silly sentences using words that include a spelling pattern taught in that day’s lesson. For example, ask students to use the words that have the /əl/ sound spelled with ‘-le’ plus consonants ‘z,’ ‘g,’ and ‘k.’ With an example text or poem, students can identify words that fit the pattern and use them in their own creative ways. Leave time so students can read their silly sentences aloud and share them with the class.
For 3rd Grade Onwards
At this point, students are moving on from learning to read, to reading to learn. Reading comprehension skills are key at this time. Students will be asked to collect information from a variety of sources and summarize it. They are increasingly focused on both reading and writing skills and the ability to edit and revise their work.
For reluctant readers in this phase, teachers could consider some of the practices below:
Give Context: If you are focused on a certain text, provide a bit of background knowledge and context, even utilizing pictures. This will help ground students in the reading work ahead. Direct instruction is important, but try to limit this to 3-5 minutes to give students more time to read.
Essential Words: If you’re providing background knowledge for a text, feature an essential word for students, further illustrating that word with an example, a non-example, and a photograph that clarifies the meaning of the word.
Partner Read: Ask students to partner read a book together. Students can take turns reading a paragraph: one student can read a paragraph while the other is asked to look for or answer something specific related to that paragraph. After a paragraph is read, this practice builds discussion around a text and helps students develop the habit of reading and annotating. Once one cycle is complete, students should switch roles. During this time, teachers can also circulate to provide direct instruction and feedback for struggling readers.
Culminating Question: After partner reading, introduce a culminating question at the end of the exercise based on the conversations from the text. Students have hopefully been building up ideas on the topic during the partner read that they should be able to write about at its conclusion.
Maximize Reading Time: Partner reading, rather than a popcorn style approach, can be a great way to maximize reading time for more students during a class. At this stage, try to give students the opportunity to read for 20 minutes daily. That’s 3,600 minutes per school year, exposing them to nearly 2 million words annually!
Penalba recommended that book sets and collections can be especially helpful at this time. Look to build collections with a common theme that offer books across reading levels. Students can then get the same information but at different levels of complexity. (Start with these Scholastic classroom favorites teachers return to again and again.)
For Parents
As parents of struggling readers approach teachers with questions about how to best support their children, Penalba also shared some guidance about how educators can guide at-home work.
20 Minutes a Day: Remind parents what 20 minutes a day of reading can do for children. Share the stat above. The difference between 20 minutes and 5 minutes (with only 900 minutes and 282,000 words per year) is substantial. Building in reading time is a wonderful way for teachers and parents to partner together to impact outcomes.
Children Choose: With children, and especially adolescents, remind parents to encourage children to choose the books they read. If they aren’t engaged, reading will become a chore rather than a cherished practice. Share ideas from your own classroom library collections or suggest titles to engage students based on what you’ve learned about them in class.
Five Finger Rule: If parents are struggling to choose books that are the right reading level for their child, introduce the 5 finger rule. Ask the child to read 1 page of a book. If there are 1-2 words they don’t know, the book is likely too easy. If there are more than 5 words they don’t know, the book is likely too difficult. If there are approximately 5 words they don’t know, this is likely the right level and the child should be able to use context clues to decode the meaning of the words.
Partner Reading: Parents and their children can partner to read in a very similar way to what you might do in your classroom. Encourage parents to ask a question at the end of each page and to engage in dialogue with their child. Parents can read one page and then invite their child to read the next, progressing in manageable chunks together.
Readers Theater: A beloved classroom practice, this approach also works well at home. Have parents assign roles to get the entire family involved in a book. Someone can play stage director, while others take the role of reading a specific character or characters. As everyone reads, it’s important to have them really get into the roles and act them out.
Dav Pilkey, creator of the beloved Captain Underpants and Dog Man series, stated of his own early reading challenges, “We all have challenges in our lives, and it’s up to us whether we think of them as good things or bad things.” Given all the incredible work that teachers and families do to support their growing readers, creativity, optimism and a passion for reading can never be overlooked. Whatever methodologies, texts, or practices you might use — Penalba (and Pilkey) remind us that sharing your own positive attitude and passion for reading are still critical tips to keep top of mind every day.
Shop great books to encourage reluctant readers below! You can find all books and activites at The Teacher Store.