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
I agree with your sentiments that in order to engage readers we have to provide choice in genre, format, and platform. The idea that books are “broken” for some, while something I too observe, saddens me. Like you, I would also like to see some more data and discussion about smartphone use in the classroom. There is a broad range of opinions and practice on this topic.
While it is sad to see, I think it is something that we are just going to have to accept as we rely more and more on technology for our daily lives. I had a discussion about this with a colleague recently and he made some good points using music as an example. He said that the best way to listen to music is through vinyl using a turntable. He believes that streaming music has lower sound quality, and it leads to a lesser degree of appreciation of the art because people can skip songs so easily before really giving the music a chance. But good luck trying to convince any kid that using a turntable is better than music streaming. For my unengaged readers who refuse to read traditional books, providing the option of using another platform has worked for some (not all). But I know that forcing kids to read traditional books hasn’t worked either. From my experience, they either refuse to read (and just talk and distract others) or pretend to read.
I have always felt that students should not be blanket banned from using their technology in the classroom. They need to learn responsible use. I have always explained to students that it is a privileged to be able to use your phone, not a right, in my classroom. If they abuse the privileged, then they can no longer use the device. Reading should be on any platform, from books to the latest electronic devices. Students actually read a surprising amount during each day, it is just in a different format than what would have been considered reading when I was in school.
As stated, reading is reading and what platform literacy takes on should not matter. I think that the debate lies in how the platform offers up things beyond it’s reading. The social outlets that technology offer as well as the ability to read is the issue that I’ve been running into. The distraction from the material that would be otherwise read by the vibrations that come through via text messages is where the trouble comes from.
Schools that have banned phones have touted that they have seen academic gains. While not supported, I believe that this is not because of the device that students may read on, but that their reading would be interrupted by social calls. I wonder if we can recognize that it is not the device on which we read on that matters, but the social uses of the same device that interrupt the reading, then we would be better able to incorporate them into our classroom settings.
Here’s another short video of Stephen Krashen talking about Free Voluntary Reading, making books accessible to students and using introducing technology in the classroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAui0OGfHQY. I agree with you and Stephen that there’s a place for technology in the classroom and in reading. As Grahame has already commented, students need to be taught how to use devices responsibly.