Engaging your reluctant readers

[Jetta Lovett]

This summer I read "You Gotta BE the Book" by Jeffrey Wilhelm. It was a great read and in it he poses the question that all teachers ask, “What do engaged readers do that reluctant readers could learn to do?” So instead of teaching reading skills, we should be creating a new kind of reading environment. This environment would enrich the engaged readers and build upon the knowledge of our reluctant readers. The role of the reader should not be that of a passive reader, but that of an active reader that makes meaning and connects personally to what is read.

In this model, he stresses the interactive approach. By using literary letters, symbolic story representation, and drama, everyone has a place in learning and experiencing the reading act by displaying and performing what they have learned from the text. In school we primarily train our students to answer the questions at the end of the story, which they find uninteresting, instead of experiencing the world of the story. In this experience the teacher asks the students to explain what they see, feel, think, and remember when attending to their own experience of the text. The focus is on the process of reading. Wilhelm stresses that learning is social, so why is much of our schoolwork done in isolation? This has deepened my understanding as to how students learn to read. When students use dialogue and reflective writing, they learn the secrets that expert readers know and do.

How have you used drama, besides the drama that walks into your classroom every day, to engage reluctant readers?

[Catherine Guild]

HI Jetta,

I had a group of higher readers last year for intervention. Initally they were very excited about reading chapter books and working in literature circles, each student performing a different job (e.g. word wizard, summary expert, character captain, etc.) then sharing their work with the group. However, after the first chapter book interest began to wane. I switched to reader's theater and initially used some fractured fairy tales for them to perform. They absolutely loved being the center of attention and wanted to do their parts with fluency and expression. They were able to create some simple props to go with their play, and were really thinking about thier character and how they wanted to present them to the rest of the class. After the initial reader's theater we still read and wrote about several chapter books, but the readers' theater continued to be used as a break in between. They looked forward to each new script and constantly asked whey they could do readers' theater again. They were working hard with their groups, reading and rereading but they were having fun and enjoying this reading experience.

After reading your post, I think the next time I do this I will add a reflective writing piece about their experience such as writing a character sketch for the character they performed.

[Teddy Cook]

Yes, Jetta, I have. And it DOES work! However. . the the crunch to pass tests.. the luxury of time is less and less for "creative" teaching. I have done Readers Theater. . where the students picked texts. . usually below their actual reading level. . but they wrote and created their own dialogue from the books and we went to the local elementary schools to perform! My students loved it! Then, I found other Reader's Theater scripts. . based on literature. We "read" those as a class. I found that my reluctant readers had fun and were more inclined to read on their own. It had been shown to them that there is a whole world of different kinds of "reading" and it was okay to explore and enjoy it! I doubt I will be able to work Readers' Theater into my curriculum this year. . . sad to say!