Reading and

School
A Teens Perspective
By Dana Woodbury
November 2015
Woodbury, Dana. Daughter Reading. 2015.JPEG File

for societys future. What

uess what, Mom?!
can bring the desire to read
I have to do ANback to teens? Here are
OTHER chapter
some tips to try, from a
report on this dumb book!
students perspective, as a
This gross stuff in The
few classroom changes can
Jungle is making me have
make a world of difference.
nightmares! Many parents hear these type of
complaints often through#1: Add in some indeout the school year. Dreadpendent choice reading
ed chapter reports on disto the class requireliked books, boring classments. When my daughmate read-aloud sessions
ter, a high school senior,
that students
returned home
strain to hear
from the first
Aliterates, people day of school
and take too
long, vocabulary
this year, one of
who have the
worksheets that
the first things
entail looking
ability to read but she announced again through
with a big smile
choose not to, miss and exclamaevery page and
paragraph, hisjust as much as tion point emtorical context
phasis - was
reviews, and the those who cannot that her Engtedious analyzlish teacher
read at all.
ing of the plot all
would be letting
are combining to
them pick most
turn teens off of
of their own reading books.
reading. Reading in teens
As I learned more about
is trending down, as rewhat the teacher was reported here by the Nationquiring and the reasoning
al Endowment of the Arts,
behind this decision, I was
which is not a good portent

even more impressed.

Dayna Smith, M.Ed., a
high school English teacher
from Gilbert, Arizona, discovered through trial and
error what got her students
reading again, which then
translated to those greatly
desired higher testing
scores big time (see blog
posts Paradigm Shifts
and Paradigm Shift
Part II). Basically, Smith
added homework reading
of 30 minutes a night to
her regular curriculum,
which includes incentives
to try different genres. Reporting of the reading in
daily journaling, and sometimes group discussions,
also occurs.
#2: Ensure the assigned
whole-class books are
engaging. Providing exposure to important cultural and classical books, as
well as understanding
their context, should still
be an important part of a
teachers reading curriculum. But teachers could

ask themselves: Will this

book, out of all the other great
literature to choose from, have
something relatable and engaging for my students? Too
many required books are depressing or even repelling to
teens.
#3: Teachers should spend
some time sharing books that
they love and why. A love of
reading can be contagious!

Have classroom time where

new book discoveries are shared
with classmates, with teacher
recommendations included.
Inspiring a love of reading
should be a goal of every teacher. As Bernice E. Cullinan reported, Aliterates, people who
have the ability to read but
choose not to, miss just as much
as those who cannot read at all.
We want our teen students to

CHOOSE TO READ. Adding

independent choice reading to
the curriculum, making sure assigned books are engaging, and
sharing new book recommendations during class time, are all
ways to reach that goal.
Dana Woodbury is an aspiring educator and mother of
four children.