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Lesson 03: Finding and constructing communities of readers
Characteristics of Reading Activity
The social communities that frame our reading practices have particular characteristics and activities that encourage us to keep reading. To be more aware of how reading functions in these communities, and to be pro-active in engaging all the potential benefits of reading in our communities, we should identify and describe the characteristics of reading activity that takes place in our communities.
Practices
Activities with reading and writing that take place over and over again and become commonly expected by community members are often called practices, and there are many practices that have been recommended over the years to support positive reading development in schools.
Donalyn Miller encourages teachers to closely examine the purpose of each activity in a classroom to determine how it can support avid and engaged reading by students, and instill the habits of life-long reading. Without enacting this reflective practice, we might reinforce activities with reading that fail to help our students become better readers and, even worse, fail to help them integrate independent reading as a valued source of ideas and support in their lived worlds.
Listen to Podcast
Listen to the following interview with Donalyn Miller as she discusses how classrooms can serve as places to develop life-long habits for reading: What are the Habits of Lifelong Readers, How do we Instill Them? (click link).
Silent Sustained Reading (SSR)
Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) is one of the practices that has been widely adopted and is still in use today with structured time for silent reading built into many school and classroom schedules. One characteristic feature of SSR is that all of the adults join the children in simultaneous reading. SSR has been a regular activity in classrooms for nearly 50 years.
Watch Video
The following link to YouTube (click link) describes the importance of SSR and how they implement activities in their own school contexts.
Book Reports
Book reports are a common practice in schools that involve students sharing information from a book they have read independently. Unfortunately, a characteristic of these oral book reports is often a dull summary of plot that ends just before the spoiler and a final plea to read the book to find out for yourself what happens. Donalyn Miller describes (pp 137-138) how book commercials in her classroom generate an alternative literacy practice.
Watch Video
A Twist on the School Book Report (click link) provides another interesting alternative in which students author video trailers to share a book. We will look more thoroughly at digital video and its uses with YA literature in later lessons.