LITERACY

6 Ways to Promote Extensive Reading in The Classroom

8 November 2023/ By Zineb DJOUB

Extensive reading is beneficial to students. It promotes their reading fluency and increases reading speed (Day & Bamford, 2002). Research has also shown that strong reading skills are required at university, and this can be extremely demanding if students have had no previous experience of reading extensively (Grabe,2009). So, students need to develop reading habits that go beyond the texts they encounter in the coursebooks. They need to read for personal pleasure or interest outside the class.

Therefore, educators should encourage extensive reading to support students in their academic journey and future careers.

To do so, here are 6 effective ways to motivate your students to read extensively.

1. Set reading goals

The more students are motivated to read, the more they will read. They need to see extensive reading as a way of learning, improving, and meeting their academic needs. They also need to have ownership of the process and show a long-term commitment to reading.

So, it is necessary to engage their motivation by providing purpose for reading.

To provide purpose for reading and motivate students, encourage them to establish their reading goals before engaging in extensive reading. You can help them with the process by asking them to:

• Reflect on what reading topics and genres they enjoy most.
• Identify their reading purpose: for pleasure, academic improvement, or career development.
• Establish clear objectives that are specific, measurable, and achievable. For example, reading one book per month or “reading 20 pages a day.”
• Set a reading schedule; when and how often they will read.
• Track their progress, using a reading journal, a digital app, or a notebook to record the books they have read, hours spent, information/vocabulary learned, etc.
• Reflect on what they have learned and how reading is contributing to their knowledge and personal growth.

 

Achieving their reading goals can help create a sense of achievement in most students, thereby motivating them to read more widely.

2. Provide access to materials

Providing students with materials from the beginning is an essential step toward extensive reading.

Create an organized classroom library with a wide range of books catering to various reading levels and interests. Be sure to provide a variety of choices so that students can choose titles they are interested in and can engage with.

There are various ways to acquire books for your classroom library such as bringing books from your collection, donations (students, parents, colleagues), grants or funding from the school or local organizations, and Scholastic Book Club orders.

You can create a catalog or list of all the books in your library, organising them by genre, reading level, author, or any other system that makes sense for your classroom.

In case creating a classroom library is not possible, you can still use the school library as your main resource for books. Yet, remember that to create reading habits, reading materials need to be easily accessible to all students.

3. Provide a choice of materials

When students are provided with a choice of selecting their reading material, they are more likely to read it. Therefore, it is important to know what types of books (fiction, non-fiction, etc.) your students like to read so that you can provide the materials and create communicative activities that lead to greater engagement.

Conducting reading interest surveys, literature circles, and book clubs can help students share their reading interests, and define your list of recommended books for students.

To help students reflect on their choices and improve their reading experience, encourage them to maintain reading logs where they record the books they’ve read, including the title, author, and a brief review.

4. Promote reading habits

Devoting regular time and a space to read in class was found to increase students’ motivation to read. In-class reading is more engaging if the teacher reads as well, so as not to distract them during reading time and provide a model for extensive reading.

In addition, the regularity of in-class reading can form reading habits. So incorporate reading time regularly within your lessons. 15 minutes can be enough for students to engage with and enjoy their texts. Playing some classical or smooth jazz music in the background can create a different mood in the classroom your students will enjoy.

Besides in-class reading, you need to encourage students to continue their reading outside of the classroom. To achieve this goal, create reading challenges, use a star-studded bulletin board, and offer rewards.

You can also involve parents in supporting their children to read at home, providing them with a list of books and guidelines to follow.

In addition to that, encouraging students to interact, and share what they have read, and learned can also be a source of motivation to create reading routine (see below Creating a sharing community).

5. Address difficulty of comprehension

Understanding the overall meaning of the text while reading is important for students to enjoy extensive reading and get more motivated to read.

Indeed, there is a positive relationship between ease of reading, the rate of reading, and enjoyment. So, if students use constantly dictionaries to check texts word-for-word, reading would be tedious and less engaging.

We need, therefore, to address difficulty of comprehension to support students in developing their reading fluency. This is by doing regular activities to teach them reading comprehension strategies such as guessing meaning from context, understanding referents, cohesive devices, etc. Students should also be encouraged to practise these strategies, and not allowed to use dictionaries or ask for words’ meanings during reading sessions.

Further, when introducing extensive reading at first, we should provide choices of reading materials that are easier to read and more enjoyable. Then, once students are confident with the process, they can opt for more challenging ones. Yet, remember that your support and guidance are always essential in promoting extensive reading.

6. Create a sharing community

Developing a reading community can encourage students to interact face-to-face and beyond the classroom via an online community. This can boost their motivation to read more.

Yet, community interaction requires engaging students in communicative activities where they share their reading experiences.

To help create a sharing community, here are some engaging communicative activities:

Organize flexible book clubs in which students can form their own groups based on common reading interests. They can then choose books to read and discuss together.

Use virtual book clubs to encourage students to discuss books with their peers using online platforms, like video calls or discussion forums.

Have students write book reviews or recommendations for their favourite books. These reviews can be displayed in the classroom or on a class website, providing insight and encouragement to fellow students.

Organize a book exchange where students can exchange books they’ve already read for new ones. This can be done within the classroom or school (by trading books with another class).

When each student completes a book, allow him or her to design an original cover for the book. You can supply the necessary materials. Then, post the book cover on the bulletin board.

Partner with local libraries, bookstores, or community organizations to promote reading initiatives and activities that students can take part in beyond the classroom.

 

Fostering extensive reading in the classroom is a powerful tool for enhancing students’ reading fluency and helping them succeed academically. By setting reading goals, providing diverse access to materials, offering choices, promoting reading habits, addressing comprehension challenges, and creating a sharing community, we can create an environment where students not only learn to read but also learn to love reading. With these strategies, we can empower students to embark on a lifelong journey of exploration, imagination, and knowledge through the world of books.

 

References

Day, R. and Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language 14 (2), 136-141.

Grabe, W.(2009).  Reading in a Second Language. Moving from Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.