Many of you have probably seen Stephen Krashen’s lecture on the benefits of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), but I think it’s worth watching again.  If you don’t have time to watch the whole video, I have linked a much shorter article below that goes over many of his main points.

Stephen Krashen: Pleasure Reading

Krashen speaks about the benefits of SSR to student literacy, and how it makes the life of a teacher easier.  He points out that studies show that SSR typically improves both reading and writing skills more than the same amount of time spent with traditional instruction.  The worst case scenarios show no difference in performance between SSR and traditional instruction, so it is much easier and fun for both the teachers and students to run SSR programs in their classes.  This inspired me to modify the way I do silent reading in my own class.

The biggest change I have made to my silent reading time is giving students way more freedom in what and how they read.  One of Krashen’s main points is that students should be reading whatever they want.  In his talk, this means they shouldn’t be limited to novels.  Comics and other forms of literature should be encouraged as well.  However, I think that needs to be revised to include reading on whatever platform they want as well.  Reading today looks different than it did 10 years ago, and it looks dramatically different than it did 20 years ago.  During my silent reading time, I don’t care what kids read or what device they use.  Most kids are reading traditional paper books.  Some are reading comics.  Some are reading on their E-readers.  Some of the students like to use the iPads to read magazines.  Sports Illustrated is a big hit with the boys in my class.

For my struggling readers, I let them use the class computers or library computers to read.  I usually log them on to TumbleBook or TumbleBookCloud.  These are great websites that will read books aloud to students while highlighting the text as well.  TumbleBook is for younger or lower readers, and it has animated picture versions of all your favourite picture books.  TumbleBookCloud is for older readers, and has “enhanced E-books.”  This service highlights text while reading novels.  Both of these sites often add music and sound effects to add even more enjoyment to the reading experience.   You do need a subscription to use these services but anyone with a public library card should have access for free.

When you look across my class during silent reading, it looks like everyone is doing something different.  Each student is reading in whatever way they feel most comfortable with at the time.  Times are changing and we have to change our views on what reading looks like as well.  I believe that in order to encourage reading, we must give students choice.  Choice in not only what they read, but how they read as well.  Personally, I don’t have many books in my house anymore.  I do most of my reading on my Kobo, and sometimes on my phone or computer as well.  I read Why School? on the Kindle app on my phone.  If I don’t read paper books anymore, how can I expect all of my students to?  The way kids read and learn to be literate is changing.

Here is a video that went viral a few years ago.  It shows a 1 year old happily playing with an iPad.  She has already learned how to swipe, pinch, and tap.  Then she tries to look at a magazine.  She looks at the pictures and tries to tap, pinch, and swipe away.  Nothing happens.  She is confused.  The video ends with a caption that states that to the girl, “a magazine is an iPad that does not work.  It will remain so for her whole life.”  We have to adapt our expectations and facilitate learning in the best ways that suit the students.  To many students, old fashioned books are “broken.”  They do not work for them.

My tactic of giving students choice has not been without its flaws though.  Students are more likely to get distracted on a tablet and navigate away from their reading.  In addition to that, it is difficult to monitor if everyone is actually doing what they are supposed to on their device.  Students fight over the limited devices we have.  If a student brings their own device and their battery runs dead, they use it as an excuse not to read because they refuse to read paper books.  But the biggest downside I came across was abuse of the devices by using their time to bully others online.  Because of this, I had to ban the use of personal phones during school time.  Previously, we had thought a “bring your own device” strategy would have positive outcomes.  We were wrong in our case.  I believe that utilizing different devices to read on has a positive impact, but I also believe that smartphones belong in a separate category on their own.  Policies on smartphones need to be considered thoughtfully, as they are such personal devices that many of our students (and teachers) are addicted to.  When I looked for literature about smartphone use in schools, there really isn’t too much out there.  Below is an article that cites some studies, but overall it doesn’t come to any decisive conclusion as to how to best deal with smartphone use in schools.  It’s just to early to tell.

As for school-wide reading programs, our school doesn’t have any.  Teachers at our school are largely given their own autonomy to teach how they see fit.  There has been talk about implementing a whole school silent reading period right after lunch everyday.  There has also been talk about possibly having all classes do reading with their buddy classes once per week at the same time.  The idea behind this was to promote leadership and social responsibility among the senior students, while fostering literacy at the same time.

Keeping with the theme of utilizing technology to foster literacy, I looked for some inspiration from what other schools are doing.  I came across this video from Meyer Elementary School.

They have a dedicated technology teacher who works with students on their tech skills.  The tech teacher collaborates with the classroom teachers to integrate technology into the curriculum.  For example, if a class is learning about narrative storytelling, the tech teacher will also teach those concepts, but give the students tech tools to work with to show their learning.  It is unrealistic to for our school to get a dedicated tech teacher, but I believe that this something that could be done with the school librarian during library periods.  As a classroom teacher, this is something that I would love to have as a resource.  As a potential teacher-librarian, this is something that I would love to collaborate with the staff on.

The world of technology is changing so rapidly these days and we need to be able to keep up and keep these changes in mind when we teach not just literacy, but all subjects.  As I was scouring the web for this inquiry, I came across so many articles and videos that were less than ten years old and realized that I couldn’t use them because they appeared so dated.  They were talking about the Blackberry and had images of people using one inch thick laptops.  Kids would laugh at that technology and that wasn’t even that long ago!  I believe that in order to best facilitate literacy among our students, we have to encourage and provide access to all of the technology that they have become accustomed to using since birth.  Not that there’s anything wrong with plain old books.  It’s just that to some, traditional books simply don’t work for them.  To them, books are “broken.”

Works Cited

Krashen, S. (2012, April 05). Retrieved May 25, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSW7gmvDLag

Krashen, S. (2007, November 01). Stephen Krashen: Pleasure Reading. Retrieved May 24, 2018, from https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best of Bilash/Stephen_Krashen pleasure reading.pdf

UserExperiencesWorks. (2011, October 06). Retrieved May 25, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

Barnwell, P. (2016, April 27). Do Smartphones Have a Place in the Classroom? Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/do-smartphones-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/480231/

Edutopia. (2016, January 06). Retrieved May 25, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW6j0_Z65aE&t=203s