My colleagues are reporting that kids just don’t read like they used to. Normally I would shrug off those complaints that I have heard throughout my entire career, but since the pandemic I’m worried that there may be some truth to these claims. Is it a cultural shift that has snowballed in the last few years? The impact of tech on reading habits (I know that I now read less books)? Or is the community where I teach just missing the value of reading? Hint: I have heard English teachers lament that they no longer read full books with students, just “selections”.
In this newsletter I will describe the three reading routines that I am building into my lessons every single day. Reading every day in language class is essential. I want to make sure that our class reading experiences are varied to build many reading skills, especially pleasure reading. But I am also adding more of something that I used to find distasteful: post-reading activities like comprehension questions.
Every day we do (1) free choice reading with almost no accountability activities, (2) we end our class by making a Write & Discuss text that reflects the conversation that has taken place in class, and (3) midway through class I am adding a reading WITH accountability activities.
Free Choice Reading
We often start our level 2 class with free choice reading. Some of my students look forward to this very chill first ten minutes, and I have noticed that they are now reading with more fluency than I expected. I worried that they were flying through the books without understanding, so we did a brief reading log. I know! Reading logs are no longer considered among best practices, and I would not have continued assigning them even if they revealed spotty reading comprehension. But I needed something to quickly assuage my doubts. And guess what? Everything is fine!
We have spent some time exploring the entire easy reading library that I have in my classroom, so students had an opportunity to explore and discover a book that comes close to their interests. I think that building browsing into your reading program is very important.
My level 1 students are not yet reading free choice books, although I think that they are getting close. I am starting the level 1 classes with book talks describing the easy readers in our class library so that they will be ready when the time comes.
The seeds of our Write & Discuss text
Today it was raining ridiculously hard, so our first class conversation (the student-centered one) was about the rain. In Spanish, I asked each student before they entered the room if they like the rain. Then once we were all inside, why or why not? Hair a problem when it rains? I wouldn’t know. Students smile at my joke that only a bald person can make, so I know they understand. But you like to dream when it rains? Do you have good dreams when it rains? I like to curl up with a coffee and read a book when it rains.
Sometimes I worry that these short conversations are not stretching their language abilities. Ridiculous, right?! I need to remind myself that the easy flowing conversations may be the most valuable ones. Low cognitive demand means that the natural process of language acquisition will occur efficiently.
In any case, it was this easy conversation that was later recycled in the last 10 minutes of class to develop our Write & Discuss text of the day. W&D is a summary. I start with one word and ask a student to contribute the next word. I’ll often add a word or two to gently shape the direction of the text, but for the most part this text is written by the whole class community.
As we write, I do point to the transition word magnets that help make our W&D texts so much more than simply rehashing our previous conversation. Here is an example:
The key thing to notice is that this text did not emerge spontaneously out of nothing. We had a simple conversation at the beginning of class. That lasted about ten minutes. Then we forgot about it for 30 minutes. Towards the end of class I said, “let’s write about rainy days” in English to remind them. I think that leaving that stretch of time in between is actually very good “memory recall” practice.
If Free Choice Reading feeds their curiosity, then Write & Discuss harnesses it into expression — and the readings with post-reading activities strengthen the habits that make both sustainable.
Reading with activities
The newest reading routine I’ve added this year is building in time for a text that feels a bit “more like school”. This seems to help those students who need a reason to read. And since my classes can sometimes feel like a long, organic conversation, these readings help some students feel like we are ‘doing something’ in class. It has been a process to get me to recognize that this can be a good use of class time.
But I am recognizing something fundamental: when I force students to really pay close attention to this text, that careful disposition towards reading bleeds into the other reading activities, including the pleasure reading activities.
Some students train themselves not to pay attention if they think there will be no accountability. Are those habits bleeding into all of their reading experiences?
I need to lead them ‘over the bridge’ because, in the end, there cannot be accountability for everything. So I hope that this small daily activity is training their minds to adopt effective reading habits, without having to complete activities after every single text.
I’ve written earlier about the new cloze (fill-in-the-blank) readings from my Big Books of Tiny Readings series (available in French and Spanish). Students complete most of these texts on their own within 5-7 minutes. Those texts are ideal transition activities that support literacy. I also think they are ideal because many students perceive them as puzzles to be solved. And puzzles, my friends, can be delightful.
Sometimes the ‘tiny reading’ serves as the second conversation (i.e. the conversation about target language cultures). That means I’ll spend another 5-10 minutes talking about the people or places described in the text.
Other times students will pass in their work without reviewing it in class. It takes me seconds to glance at the sheet after class and give a completion grade. That is the skill I am teaching: pay attention to details and complete the work! Truly I believe I am seeing that skill bleed into the W&D as students track the reading rather than quietly tune out.
Sometimes the reading with activities comes from a Maravillas presentation. In the past I used to end the presentations with a W&D, but this summer I have gone through and created independent readings to supplement most of the Maravillas.
I published an example last week that includes a reading about a man that makes building materials out of the sargasso seaweed. I think these presentations are fascinating, but I have to recognize that many of my students are not as interested. So not everything in my class is pleasure reading.
But take a look at the reading activities that I am now adding to Master Class Library texts!
These texts were written for pleasure reading, and they are still part of my Free Choice Classroom library. I appreciate that we can also read a text in class with accountability activities, while still leaving it out for students to rediscover on their own time.
We now have activities available for every comic from the book Un gato puede ser un gorro.
This book is a student favorite for independent reading. Take a look at the title comic. When I read this in class (as a whole class text) I usually start (A) with a quick picture talk. Essentially, I tell the entire story before we even start reading it together. I don’t worry about ‘spoiling the ending’. The picture I choose for the picture talk is the one where the cat is already scratching the man. Then (B) we read the whole story aloud, page by page, in a sort of kindergarten reading approach. After having read it together, I’ll flip back to the beginning and now (C) ask the class questions about each page. At this point the students have already read the story three times!
Now is the time that I pass out this sheet of post-reading activities. I really like that I have included four different kinds of questions that make them return to the story and reread each time. The mini-Venn diagram at the end requires them to process the story on a higher level. They complete this sheet on their own. It only takes them a few minutes, but it seems that this additional level of individual accountability is necessary to make it all come together.
As students are finishing their… ugh, I hate saying this… their “worksheets”, I am turning towards the whiteboard to suggest that we write our Write & Discuss text. “Let’s write about rainy days”, I say. Our last reading activity draws from students’ creativity in a way that can be very satisfying. And this satisfaction is what I want them to feel when reading.
Conclusions
Can we teach students to read with pleasure while also refining their reading habits? Of course.
Free Choice Reading invites curiosity; Write & Discuss turns that curiosity into shared expression; and the structured readings build the habits that make both sustainable. The tiny daily readings are my newest bridge between joy and rigor — small puzzles that make attention itself feel rewarding. Here is my hypothesis: I suggest that imposing mild accountability measures does not have to necessarily undermine pleasure reading.
If reading is my superpower, it’s because it connects joy and discipline. When students learn that attention itself can be pleasurable, I think we’ve done something heroic.
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