The two key strategies to getting reluctant readers
excited about books are:
* introducing them to books that they can get excited about and
* giving them positive role models.
A recent strategy has been to bring firefighters and hockey players
into the classroom to read, but this can backfire. What if the person
isn't a regular reader? Kids notice when a "star" reader stumbles over
common words and phrases. The underlying message then becomes, "I don't
read, but you should."
Another strategy is to bring in an author based on what they've
written. This can also backfire. What if that author is a dud in
person?
At Authors' Booking Service we are careful about whom we represent. It
is not enough that our authors and illustrators create great books.
They must also be able to engage an audience.
Our authors are passionate about the topics they write, and authors who
are good presenters can make small details and history come alive. For
example, when Anita
Daher walks into a classroom wearing an authentic flight suit, kids
sit up and take notice. She talks about the importance of pockets -- to
writers and to pilots. And she talks about wildfires, airplanes and the
real life mysteries and adventures behind her books. Lesley
Simpson
uses eye contact and self-deprecating humour as she teaches writing
workshops and reads from her picture books. Liam
O'Donnell
brings alive the stories behind his graphic novels and his hit
comic series Max Finder Mystery, which appears monthly
in OWL magazine. We have authors like Marsha
Skrypuch and Gillian
Chan who make authentic war stories come alive and we have mystery
writers like Valerie
Sherrard and time-travel/fantasy writers like kc dyer and
James Bow
who intrigue and entertain as they touch on curriculum topics.
Not every student will be interested in fiction, so we also have
fantastic non-fiction writers like Silver Birch winner, Helaine
Becker
whose presentations are light and fun, and nature writer/illustrator Celia
Godkin
who can talk about wolves, sea otters, forest fires, insects and more.
Every reluctant reader is only one book away from being a passionate
reader. You've helped us with the Forest of Stories reading programs.
Let us help you with author visits. Together, we will develop that
passion for books in your students!
Local travel costs only! You've seen these four words peppered throughout our weekly email newsletter, but were you aware of their significance? When an out-of-province author is coming to Ontario, or an Ontario author is visiting an area a considerable distance from his or her home, the savings to hosting organizations can be huge! Long distance travel is already covered, and other costs that would normally be incurred in bringing a particular author to your location may already be covered or reduced.
Pairing Up! When a presenter is visiting your school or library for half a day or less, it's a great idea to check with others in your area to see if someone would like to book an available time slot for the same date. In this way, local travel costs are shared.
Available Funding There are a number of programs to assist schools and libraries with costs of author visits. Contact us for further information at: authors.bookingservice@gmail.com
Getting reluctant readers into books often feels like a losing battle. It's hard not to get discouraged when your most enthusiastic efforts are shot down with blank stares and studied indifference.
Perhaps the most difficult thing is knowing which titles to thrust into those readers' hands.
Believe this: Selecting just the right book *can* make a difference. Not always, but sometimes. And those are golden moments, when a reluctant reader finds him or herself drawn into the pages and discovers that reading can indeed be enjoyable.
At a recent PD session, author Valerie Sherrard conducted an exercise with her group, called The Three Minute Interview. For this exercise, she asked the group to come up with questions for educators to draw from, questions that could help them recommend just the right book.
With thanks to those participants, here are the questions they suggested:
1.) What are your hobbies/interests?
2.) Do you consider yourself a good reader?
3.) Where have you travelled?
4.) What are your fond memories?
5.) Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
6.) Which is more important: learning about a person or learning what that person does?
7.) Who is your favourite in fiction? Non-fiction?
8.) Where did you grow up?
9.) Do you like to write?
10.) Do you have a favourite author?
11.) What TV shows and movies do you like?
12.) What are your career goals?
13.) If you could go anywhere, where would it be?
14.) What do you when you're on a computer? Play station? (types of games)
15.) What's your favourite holiday and why?
16.) What kind of music do you like?
17.) Why do/don't you like to read?
18.) What's your favourite subject in school?
19.) What do you do in your spare time?
20.) Does your family subscribe to a newspaper?
21.) Do you/your family have cards to the local library? How often do you visit the library?
If you have suggestions for additional questions for this list, please send them to us! This is just one of a number of planned resource lists we will be maintaining for your benefit.
One
of the difficult things about getting reluctant readers into books is
that reading is often not modelled at home. Children who don't see
parents reading, buying books, going to the library, or encouraging
them to read, are far less likely to spend leisure hours in a book.
The
very fact that books are not present in their lives outside of
school has a predictable result. Many of these kids never even think about reading. Imagine a home without a single book in it. What a poor message that would give!
Talking
to parents about the importance of good literary skills and how this
will affect their child's future is the first step. Most parents
recognize that this is true and want to support your efforts, but
simply don't know what to do. Here are a few suggestions you can make:
Stacking
a few comics, graphic comics or magazines in the bathroom is a good
start for parents. Leaving books with subject matter that may
interest their child about the house - on the coffee table, the child's
desk or dresser, shows that the parent supports both their child's
interests, as well as the importance of reading. And an especially
good tactic is to casually always have an interesting book in the car
(especially for long trips).
Suggest family reading time, when
everyone gets together for a ten or fifteen minute period and reads,
individually or as a group. (Group reading is often surprisingly
popular with children. Yes, even teens.)
Be
sure that parents know they can send a powerful message to their
offspring if they read themselves. Recommending a suitable book or
author to parents of reluctant readers may encourage them to model
reading in the home. If
you have ideas that might help parents support your efforts, send them
in! We'd love to hear them and share them.
Let's be frank. What do you do with the student, who instead of writing
a 500 word story, hands in pages and pages and pages? You don't want to
discourage, that's for sure. But how can one educator possibly be
expected to give adequate feedback to such a pyramid of paper?
You can't.
Obviously,
students must learn to follow instructions and handing something in
that's way over the limit is not following instructions. But given that
it's like pulling teeth to get full sentences out of some students, it
seems counter-productive to penalize those few who are passionate about
what they write.
As writers ourselves, Marsha & Valerie can
tell you that early encouragement is important. But the fact still
remains that there aren't enough hours in the day to fill out all the
reports and papers as it is, let alone read a child's handwritten 50+
page story. And even if you did read the whole thing, how can you mark
it? There are developmental phases of writing. We writers can tell you
that sometimes we concentrate on character and other times we
concentrate on scene-setting. So a 50+ page story written by a student
in a few days will always come up short, yet the fact that they're able
to passionately write such volume means that they have the potential to
become a professional writer in the future.
May we suggest that
you read a random portion of the work that approximates 500 words and
mark just that portion? Obviously, there won't be a beginning, middle
and end in that sample, but there will be sentence structure,
vocabulary, clarity of idea and other aspects to evaluate. And the fact
of all those pages demonstrates complex thinking that transcends the
issue of beginning, middle and end.
May we also suggest that you
consider inviting an author to your school who can do writing
workshops? Contact Marsha & Valerie and tell us your writing
workshop needs and we'll suggest a number of authors for you.
And one more thing -- Marsha runs a free online writing workshop
for kids and also for adults who write for kids. The workshop is hidden
from public view, and is thus a safe place for your avid writer to get
feedback and encouragement. Ask Marsha for more details.
