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How can you get your students to silently read every single day? It might seem overwhelming but I am here to tell you that it is absolutely possible!
I’ve taught English Language Arts for over 11 years in Ttitle 1 schools where some or all of my students read below grade level (or couldn’t read, in a 6th grade class!) all the way up to a magnet STEM school with students reading at college level. I have successfully implemented Silent Sustained Reading in every classroom I’ve taught and seen incredibly positive results.
Before I tell you more about how, I want to explain why this is so valuable. (But if you want to jump straight to the how, check out this blog post)
1. It helps you use every minute of class for educational benefit!
I start every class period with about 5-15 minutes of silent reading time. The expectation is that students come in, take out their materials and start reading – even if the class period hasn’t officially started.
Once that reading time is done, students keep their books on their desks. Anytime they finish something early in class, or we get an interruption like a phone call or an office pass, they know to grab their books and start reading. Does it take time to train them in this? Absolutely. Is it worth it? YES! Review all the reasons why in my previous blog post here.
Do students sometimes rush through work to get to their books? Yeah. But I’m able to see that they’ve finished earlier than they should have. I walk over, review their work and then prompt them to review and rework what they need to.
Do students sometimes read when I don’t want them to? Absolutely. It can feel annoying when they’re still reading while I’m starting instruction. But then I remember that I’m getting annoyed because a kid is in love with a book and that’s the literal best.
2. SSR gives students a mental break
Escaping into a book is such a valuable endeavor. Unlike movies and screens, reading a book has benefits beyond just taking a break from the real work. Books invite students to learn about problems and trials alongside trusted characters. Having silent reading time every day is a valuable part of helping students have balance and find joy in school.
3. SSR helps students improve test scores and grow as readers
One year, I had a group of 6th graders right after lunch. On the previous year’s state assessment, not one of them had met the benchmark for reading. 2/3rds of the class were precious boys who had a lot of energy. They really struggled with SSR and I realized pretty quickly that their reading issues were more attention and patience issues.
Once we picked out books, I started them with a minute of silent reading, then we worked up to 2-3 minutes after the first week. As time continued, I kept increasing their reading time until we were averaging about 15 minutes a day. Some days I still had behavior issues (if they struggled to read silently in class, I would make them come after school to “practice.” Suddenly I had less behavior issues:).
As the time for spring state testing neared, I devoted a couple of Friday class periods to reading for 30-40 minutes. When we got their test scores back in the summer, that class had grown significantly with many of the students meeting reading benchmarks. While I know we did good work throughout the year, I also firmly believe that teaching them to sit, focus and silently read had a huge impact.
4. SSR is a phenomenal transition to help students as they come into your class
You can’t control what happens to students right before they come into class. They may have just failed a test. Or been dumped by their girlfriend at lunch. Or experienced the time old teenage drama of brutally embarrassing oneself and having no idea what even happened.
Starting class with silent reading time gives them space to decompress from that experience as they come into your class. I have seen students come in HOT off of passing period, huffing, red in the face and ready to rip somebody’s head off. After 15 minutes of silent ready they were ready to calmly engage in a discussion on the impact of hormones on teenage decision making in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
This has proved to be especially beneficial for my students who have any kind of emotional regulation challenge as it gives them some space to cool off.
