Mistake #1: Required Reading Levels
- Students were asking me if they were “allowed” to read a book because it was slightly above or below their assigned level.
- Students were telling me they really wanted to read book #3 in a series, but they couldn’t because it was too low… even though they had already read books 1 & 2, and were really into the storyline.
- In that Google survey I mentioned earlier, a student’s answer about what he disliked about reading was, “that lexile points are required for reading and I want to read FREELY.“
It really got me thinking… Don’t I want to read freely too? Do I look at a reading level before I pick up a book? How many of the books I read on my own are “too low” for me? (Spoiler alert… all of them!) Did you know that most adult novels are written around an 800-1000 Lexile level? That’s somewhere in the 5-7th grade range. Does that mean I shouldn’t read The Pelican Brief (660 Lexile), The Girl on the Train (760 Lexile), or The Great Gatsby (820 Lexile)? Of course not!
Mistake #2: Nightly Reading Logs & Responses
- Some kids barely even saw their parents at night due to work schedules and such, so the parents didn’t really know if they had read or not.
- Some parents would sign the form every day regardless of whether reading had been done.
- I was accidentally encouraging students and parents to collude together to lie to me!
- Reading response answers were often forced, and students weren’t really reflecting on what they’d read.
- Students who were reading were only reading exactly up to the required minutes, and not a second over… even if that meant they didn’t finish their chapter.
So I did something crazy… I stopped requiring a reading log! I teach my students at the beginning of the year how important reading on their own is. I tell them that I expect them to read at least 20 minutes a day. We talk a lot about how fun reading can be. I introduce them to a wide variety of books. I make sure they have plenty of chances to check books out from my classroom library and our school library. But there’s no required reading log in my room anymore.
Mistake #3: Test-based Reading Programs & Reading Goals
- “I would definitely still read [if we didn’t have a reading goal]. I don’t like the pressure being put on me to make my reading goal.”
- “I read a lot of books that don’t have Reading Counts tests and then I don’t get points for my goal.”
- “What I like is getting a reward for making a reading goal, what I dislike is having to read books with Reading Counts tests so I can get points.”
- “I don’t read books unless they have a test because it’s a waste of time if it’s not helping me meet my goal.”
- “Reading is fun but reading goals are NOT.”
Those last two slayed me! I don’t know which student wrote the last one, because the surveys were anonymous, but this is a kid who likes to read, and I’m taking all the fun out of it by requiring tests and points in order to make a goal.
What should you do instead?
well said.
So much “Yes!” to this. My own experience is that my son enjoyed reading until he was enrolled in a school that used AR and required him to read. It took years for him to recover the joy of reading for pleasure. Sadly, my school requires me to participate in Accelerated Reading so I made it as low pressure and as free choice as possible…and the parents have been the biggest problem. It seems they must have points and levels in order to check it off their lists and feel accomplished. 🙁