Reading at Home

I have a whole bunch of thinking rambling around in my head as I get ready to fully implement the expectation that my students will read at home for 20-30 minutes each night.

First, I'm going to need my students to work hard to develop an at-home reading habit. I want to provide them with a variety of choices for the way they will track and report their reading so that they will own the whole process, from the selection of their books/texts to the development of the habit, to the tracking and reporting. So far, the menu of options include

• daily writing on paper (Typically this has been a M-Th assignment that is handed in on F, but why not let the students decide what the cycle will be? Maybe they do most of their reading on the weekend, so it makes sense to do it Th-Su and hand it in M? Or they have sports and lessons so they can best complete the work on M, W, Th, Su, or some other combination.)
• responding digitally on a Google form (The form I developed has their name, title/author of their book, a genre drop-down menu, and a place to write a reflection. The student would submit their thinking four times a week. This choice would also allow for weekend reading.)
• weekly letter (This could be handwritten or typed and would summarize and synthesize a week's worth of reading. Students could determine on what day of the week they would agree to hand in their letter.)
• blogging (Hmm...I guess if I'm going to offer this as an option, I just made my mind up about KidBlog!)

Now I'm really thinking as I type. We've got a five day week next week. I could introduce each of these options (maybe not in that exact order) on M, T, W, and Th, let them practice in class, and then practice again at home. Then they could work up their plan and submit it to me on the Tuesday after Labor Day. With each child/family developing the timing of the plan and the reporting method that works best for them, I will never again be taking a whole stack of papers home on a Friday night to haunt me until Sunday night. I'll be able to spread my tracking and responding out over the week. Hmm...I'm liking this more and more!

So. I think I just wrote my reading lesson plans for next week. Does it make sense to spend a whole week working on developing a plan for and cultivating the habit of home reading? I think in the big scheme of things, a week is a small price. 

The second thing I'm going to need for this to work is buy-in from parents that at-home reading is not fluff, not optional, and not designed by me to torture their family. Remember that chart that shows how a child's reading achievement can be correlated to the number of minutes a day they read? 

http://www.devstu.org/research-individualized-daily-reading

Here is the same chart with the benefit of 10 extra minutes a day factored in. Check out those gains for the low- to mid-level readers:

http://www.iowaafterschoolalliance.org/documents/cms/docs/10_minutes.pdf

I want my parents to know that I expect their child to read for 20-30 minutes each evening because research has proven that it will grow their child as a reader! I'm hoping that this (possible, intangible) reward will be enough to prompt my students' parents to help their child discover the cues they will use to prompt the routine and habit of at home reading.

For more information about cues, routines and rewards, this is a great book:

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

by Charles Duhigg

Random House, February 28, 2012

I'm only about halfway through the book, listening to the audio version as I drive to and from school. Duhigg's explanation of how cues, routines, and rewards work, and his amazing examples from individuals' lives to huge corporations are understandable, entertaining, and compelling.