Engaging Reluctant Readers During Whole Group Reading: Strategies for Struggling Readers
Hands up if you've ever had a classroom full of reluctant readers! What do you do when your whole class is struggling to read at grade level? When every student has had negative reading experiences thus far in elementary school?
This post will walk you through a strategy that:
builds reading confidence and pride in every child
engages every child in whole group reading
increases students' reading stamina
holds every child accountable for reading during whole group instruction
and of course, since this increases the amount of accountable time that students spend reading, it ultimately supports their fluency, vocabulary, knowledge of language and literary structures, comprehension, background knowledge, word recognition skills, love of literature, and love of learning!
This strategy promises a lot of outcomes, but I am here to tell you that I am a firsthand witness to the power of this one strategy, having used it in my whole group instruction (and small group instruction) throughout my career. It is truly transformative!
Everybody Reads, All the Time
Important Note: Popcorn Reading and Round Robin Reading have a bad reputation, and for good reasons. They are often used as "gotcha" management techniques that end in shame and humiliation for struggling readers. I want to be clear from the start - this is not what I am recommending. At all. It may sound similar at first because I am going to say that teachers should call on all students to read aloud in the whole group lesson, but please bear with me and read through this whole post before equating this strategy with Round Robin Reading. Remember, the goal of this strategy is to build confidence and stamina!
What is Everybody Reads, All the Time?
Teachers will call students names, one at a time, to read portions of the shared text out loud while the rest of the class follows along in the book.
How is this different from Popcorn Reading and Round Robin Reading?
This is strategic! We, as teachers, are putting in strategic planning on the front end in order to set students up for a positive, successful reading out loud experience. And here's how:
1) Know Your Students' Reading Abilities
Be sure you understand your students' reading abilities. Every school I've worked at has some kind of universal screening tool to assess students' reading abilities. Additionally, by reading one-on-one with each student in the first week of school, teachers can gain a lot of valuable insight into the strengths and areas of opportunity that each child possesses as a reader.
2) Read Every Text Ahead of Time
Read every text before introducing it to the class. (Here's where we get very strategic). As you read through the text, grab a couple different color highlighters (or if you can't write in the book, then some sticky notes). We are going to level individual sections of each book or passage. I like to come up with a color system and stick to it for the year (i.e., blue for parts of the text that are so difficult either myself (the teacher) or an above grade level reader (if I have one) should read it aloud, green for challenging parts of texts that on grade level students could read, yellow for medium challenging (suitable for a child reading maybe a year below grade level), orange for medium to lower levels of reading difficulty, and red for easy portions of the text that students struggling with decoding, who are several grade levels behind in reading, could manage.
While books and passages are given an overall reading level, there are sections within them that are more or less challenging and my job is to identify these challenging and less challenging portions with my class in mind.
Look for words within paragraphs that are multisyllabic, that are going to be unfamiliar, that do not follow decodable phonics patterns. For example, if you come across a four-syllable word or a word that has a 'ch', but the 'ch' is pronounced /k/ or /sh/, highlight those words in blue or green (depending on your grade level and your students' abilities).
There may be no paragraphs that are fully easy to decode for your readers who are really struggling. In this case, find a decodable, sentence with mostly one-syllable words. Pretty much every text has at minimum one sentence like this somewhere in the mix! Highlight this sentence red.
The Lexile level for The Bill of Rights by Jane Kelley is 840. This text is going to be a challenge for the fifth graders in my group. Here's some examples of paragraphs leveled from the text:
In Virginia, Patrick Henry, and Anti-Federalist, said that a Constitution without a bill of rights would take away people's personal liberties. He insisted that a bill of rights be added to the Constitution to protect citizens and states from a too-powerful central government. Meanwhile, Virginia Federalists argued that eight other states had already voted to ratify the Constitution. They asked why Virginia should slow things down by making changes.
The highlighting above is not an exact science. It is me reading the text with my students' abilities in mind. I know that the words in green would be a huge challenge for many people in the class. I know that the words in yellow would be a challenge for some, but not all of the students in the class. This paragraph is full of content specific language and multi-syllabic words. When I have my students take turns reading aloud, I am going to be very purposeful with who I call on to read this section. It will be a student who I know can tackle these words. And if this is a year where I have a class who is not ready to take on this paragraph, then I will seamlessly pick up reading when we hit this section of text and use it as an opportunity to model fluent reading.
Another example from the text:
If you are arrested, you have the right to be told what you're accused of. You also have the right to have a trial in front of a jury and the right to defend yourself. These rights are set by the Sixth Amendment.
I think the highlighted words above could really be yellow or orange because two of the three are fairly decodable with regular phonics patterns. The word Amendment, though long and daunting looking for some students, has appeared in the text well over six times by now (since this is about the sixth amendment and the text introduces them in order), so most students would recognize this word. A student who is not quite proficient, maybe a year or two below grade level (if grade level is fifth grade in this instance) could tackle this paragraph and feel very proud after being called on to read it aloud.
Final example from the text:
Even if you've broken a law, you still have rights. These four amendments list different ways to make sure people who are accused of a crime continue to be treated fairly by the government.
In a text this dense, there may not be a whole paragraph that a student multiple years below grade level can read aloud with confidence. But there will always be at least a sentence that they can tackle. And the pride that they will feel when they do is incredible to witness.
3) Student Expectations
We are now ready to bring this strategy to our students! Remember, an important purpose of this is to build confidence, so setting students up to be successful is critical. Knowing your students' reading abilities and leveling the text with them in mind is the first step to setting students up for success. The next step is making sure to explicitly teach this routine and to have a good reward system in place to reinforce it. Always keep in mind that "clear is kind" and we want to be as kind as can be to our students, so let's make sure our expectations are clear!
I am a huge fan of expectation anchor charts. Personally, I like to find systems that work and replicate them in different settings. So for expectation anchor charts, my go-to system is a Look, Sound, Feel anchor chart. I write out what routine we are introducing and then we describe how it will look in the classroom, how we will sound, and how the classroom will feel.
For this Everybody Reads routine:
Look: everyone's eyes are in the book, a finger is tracking the words, bodies are still and sitting up, books are flat on the desk
Sound: if I am following along: body and mouth are still and silent (even if someone is struggling with a word-I am silent and patient as they solve it); if I am reading aloud: voice is loud and proud and I'm reading with expression
Feel: the classroom feels calm and focused, proud of our reading, supportive and encouraging towards one another while we grow our brains
Being this specific with how students should look, sound, and feel leaves no room for unwanted, negative behaviors.
Though, we all know, occasionally unwanted, negative behaviors will occur. So, bring in the reward system.
Reward System
Having some kind of way to give students immediate, nondisruptive feedback helps with the smooth implementation of this routine and supports student buy-in initially. Every teacher has preferences for reward systems. I will share one that I've found success with: three stars.
In a forty-five minute block, students worked to earn three stars on their desks (drawn with an expo marker on a laminated card in the corner of their desk). Students earned a star if: they were called on to read and picked up reading right away because they had been following along in the text, if they answered a question while discussing the text, if they followed the expectations for written responses and attempted a thoughtful, grounded in the text answer. If students earned three stars, they were given (insert your reward here).
With different classes, I've done different rewards. One year, they were happy to earn three M&Ms (literally three single M&Ms, one for each star). Another year, a very social year, they worked to earn five extra social minutes of talk time with friends.
What happens if you aren't following along in the text? What if I call your name and you don't know where we are? First, read the sections above and below this for ways that we, the teachers, can set students up so that this rarely, if ever, happens. Second, when it does happen (and it may here and there, but hopefully not often!), I simply told students ahead of time, when introducing the routine and then reminding them throughout the year, that if you do not know where we are in the text, it is most likely because you are playing. So, when our class has a social break and is playing, you can make up the reading that you missed. This was pretty effective.
Circulate, Circulate, Circulate (Or How to Make Sure Every Student is Following Along and Can Pick Up Reading Seamlessly)
Teachers are masters at multi-tasking and here is where we really put those skills to the test! While students are reading out loud, and while you are calling on them strategically to pick up and read certain sections of the text, and while you are maybe even reading parts of the text aloud, we, the teachers, are circulating around the room in a very strategic (can you tell I love that word?) manner.
By circulating the room, we can see if students are actually following along in the text silently. And when we notice that one student's eyes drifting towards the window, we can silently pass by their desk and tap the paragraph in the book that we are currently reading so they can begin following along again. These silent, not-too-invasive ways of redirecting students help catch off task behaviors so early that there is no time for students to disengage. With the teacher's constant presence around the classroom, students will remain focused on reading along. And if you know that in two paragraphs you are going to call on a particular student (especially one who usually struggles to read and needs some extra support or confidence), you can be sure to pass by their desk to help them track the words before it is their turn.
Quick Testimony
About five years ago I was teaching fifth grade. There was a boy in my class who came in reading at a middle of year kindergarten level. And his classmates, having been with him the previous year, were well aware of this. It was an accepted fact among them that this child didn't read. So, at the beginning of the year I leveled the text that we would be reading and happened to find a section with three very basic sentences in a row. I highlighted them with my pink highlighter.
The next day as I called on students to read aloud, I made sure to circulate around the room and to pass by this boy's desk often. I wanted to make sure he stayed on task, following along in the book. I gave a few silent, hardly noticeable redirections to help him keep up in the text. And then...we came to that pink highlighted section...I called his name.
He picked up reading right away. He read those three lines perfectly (though a little choppy). And as he read, my focused fifth graders popped their heads up from their books and literally stared at him reading with surprise. One student, forgetting himself, called out, "Wait! You can read?!" And this boy, with the biggest grin on his sweet face said, with all the confidence in the world, "Of course I can!" A few students clapped. The rest gave shine (a silent hand signal we used to encourage or celebrate our teammates). I've never seen a grin quite like the one this reader wore in that moment.
He regularly volunteered to read aloud in class for the remainder of the year. And eventually asked to try out sections that were well above his reading level. He felt confident enough to try and apply his decoding skills to all kinds of difficult words and his teammates would patiently wait for him to work through those words as he read.
He ended the year on an end of second grade reading level. Not grade level proficient, but for a child who had stayed at a kindergarten reading level for five years of school, it was a lot of growth.
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