A Troubling Trend in Elementary Reading Instruction

If you want your readers to get better at reading, they need to read—a lot. But in elementary schools across the United States, I’m seeing a troubling trend. Kids have less time to actually read in school. Many literacy programs are packed with rich and wonderful activities. Students spend six weeks examining a book as a group, analyzing character development, learning new vocabulary words, mapping the plot, and understanding themes. Students engage in vibrant discussions in small groups and examine questions involving critical thinking. These are all valuable experiences, but it’s a bit like having a swim team stay in the bleachers talking about technique and practice drills while never actually getting into the pool.

What’s also challenging for teachers (not to mention students) about these programs is that the books kids explore in these units are almost always too hard for many kids. Fifth graders who are learning English or who are reading at more like a third-grade level often can’t read the designated text. This means that teachers either read the book out loud (which is a great idea, but again, means that kids aren’t getting the pool time they need) or they have kids read the text together in groups, which is slow and often leads to struggles with comprehension.

Kids need to spend time reading books of their choice that they actually want to read. Teachers know this and are often desperate to find time in their schedule for kids to get to read independently. They try to squeeze in 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, or they let kids read quietly once they’ve finished other work. This is better than nothing, but it’s clearly not enough.

Ideally, curriculum and literacy coordinators would make sure that all students got significant chunks of their day devoted to independent reading while also helping teachers know how to confer with students effectively. And yes, a reading workshop model is perfectly compatible with effective phonics instruction, which can be as simple as having students reading independently while they cycle through small group phonics instruction with their teacher.

That doesn’t do you much good if you’re an individual teacher and are trying squeeze blood from a stone in an overly packed schedule without a dedicated independent reading block. With that in mind, here are a few ideas to consider.