Choice Strategies in the Classroom for Reading in High School

Equally more than and more than teachers are building choice reading time into their daily classroom schedules, making a diversity of books available to a diverse group of students tin can exist challenging. Inspired and challenged past several teachers (including Brian Sztabnik—see "Igniting a Passion for Reading") to incorporate daily contained reading into class, I have set aside 15 minutes in each 90 minutes block for independent choice reading.

After making the spring, I quickly realized that I needed a mode to keep a diverseness of books for pick in front of my students. The goal is to get the right book in the easily of students while protecting reading fourth dimension as much as possible. Hither are a few suggestions for introducing students to books and creating a literacy-rich environment.

Speed Dating

Book "speed dating" is a swell activeness to do at the starting time of the year or semester because students tin can be exposed to several books and begin to build a reading list. When we arrive in the library, several books are arranged on tables past our media center specialists based on information I have given them about the class. Students observe a table, and the dating begins as students fill out a guided note page. A timer buzzes afterward three or four minutes, and students motion to some other table and start the process with another volume. After students accept completed several cycles, they rank the books, deciding which book to begin reading immediately and which ones to add together to their reading list. Speed dating can be varied by genre or theme, or kept wide open. This past Valentine's Day, students speed dated books complete with candles and chocolate.

Mini Book Talks

Every couple of weeks I have a staff member or media center specialist share a book that has been important to them or one they're currently reading. Students love to hear virtually the reading habits of teachers, administrators, and custodians, plus they go to know dissimilar people on campus on a more personal level.

Display Instructor Reading

Courtesy of Susan Barber

The author'southward door, showing her recent reading

My summer-reading door display greets students at the start of the twelvemonth. You lot could also feature the faculty's summer reading in a bang-up schoolhouse-wide display.

Social Media

Take students create a hashtag that features reading and their classroom, schoolhouse, or canton. They tin can mail service pictures of books they're currently reading. I honey the excitement that Amy Rasmussen generates in her district with #FarmersRead on Twitter.

Pupil Book Recommendations

Inspired by staff recommendations at bookstores, I dedicate a portion of the course message lath to student volume recommendations. I inquire students to include a brief summary, why they recommend the book, and a significant quote. I too encourage them to include a picture of their book and themselves. The brandish is e'er changing, and I find students referring to information technology when they're needing a new book.

Classroom Library

I love our school library, and we accept committed media eye specialists who are determined to become the right books to the students. However, a classroom library is a bonus for a couple of reasons. First, students lose less reading time choosing a volume from the classroom library than if they become to the school library. 2nd, I have multiple copies of some books, and so friends can read the same book. Finally, a classroom library allows the community to feel continued and a function of what is happening with my students. I brand appeals for books on social media, and friends and neighbors make donatations. I have students write thank you notes to people who donate books and honey the relationship I am fostering between Room 128 and the community. My students love writing notes on the inside cover of books from the classroom library to encourage other students to read them.

Literally Place Books in Forepart of Students

Just displaying books on the whiteboard's marker tray with a very brief description is highly effective. I accept at least i student take a book from the board each day, and then the display is continually changing.

Student Book Talks

This does take some time away from reading, but I love to give students an opportunity at least once during the semester to share a favorite book with the form. The book talk format works well because it only takes three minutes per student and provides a structure for the presentation.

Lists, Lists, Lists

Go along a running list of books read through the year visible in the classroom. I too have an ongoing list where students tape books they want me to read, and I mark them off every bit I read them—if a student goes out of the way to recommend a book to me, I will definitely brand fourth dimension to read it. I frequently share books lists with students, such as Edutopia's "Summertime Reading Recommendations" or "President Obama's Reading List" from The New York Times.

The goal of a literacy-rich classroom is betrayal students to as many different types of books every bit possible in order for them to continue to grow in their love of reading or to observe an entry point for reading.

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Source: https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-choice-student-reading-susan-barber

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