I remember the magical feeling of the school library and searching the shelves once or twice a week for a new adventure to be a part of. I would cherish and savor each and every book. Book fairs were like Christmas and even though my family couldn’t afford a lot of extra things, my parents always made sure I had money to buy books. To this day reading is a huge part of who I am.
Now I teach 6th grade science and I have a classroom library. However, there are some years that I look back at the little library in the corner of my room and I can see a layer of dust collecting on the books. My hope in setting up those shelves full of fiction and nonfiction choices, was that students would choose to go sit in the comfortable library complete with a fun little lamp and fall in love with reading when they were done with something early.
However the library isn’t utilized by my scientists nearly enough as a learning choice for when they finish something early. Usually one student a week will start a book they enjoy enough to ask if they can borrow it and read it at home. It makes my heart so happy every time even when there is only one student truly loving it. Most students tell me that they hate reading. After teaching in first and second grade for 7 years and having my students love books, it was very strange moving into a middle school setting where it is quite the opposite.
How do we incorporate a love of reading into other subjects? How can we help inspire students to love reading after elementary school? Here are a few things I’m trying this year in my classroom.
- Find high interest nonfiction articles about your subject! I love discussing current science news with students in authentic and enthusiastic ways. By modeling my excitement in what I read that morning, I encourage my science students to do the same. Pretty soon they come to class ready to share something they read online that morning in the science news. I will often include video clips of a news article that matches our current learning to increase engagement and interest. I also show students how to set up and use accessibility tools on the technology we have in order to have it read aloud to them if needed.
- Have students reading even when they don’t realize what they are doing. I love giving my students such authentic learning experiences they don’t realize they are using skills from other subject areas naturally in our science room. For example, just recently we were learning about lab skills. We discussed the power of research before writing a hypothesis. My students researched the ingredients for gummy worms and were so shocked and surprised to find out about gelatin and what it is made of. They didn’t even realize they were reading to learn and were excited about it! I love giving my students a purpose to read.
- Teach students to ask questions! By having an “I Wonder” question board in my classroom, students can add questions they have about the unit we are on as they come up. I have them use sticky notes to write down their questions. Then if a student is done with an assignment early, they can go to the board and choose a question to research. We discuss research skills before this starts and we do some together to model. Again I also model how to use text to speech and other accessibility tools in order for all students to be able to feel confident with their research skills. Students will show their sticky note with the answer to me when they are done and then they will place their answer next to the original question on the board so others can read what they discovered. Students are again using their reading skills for a motivational purpose.
- Reading aloud to students can still be an amazing tool for learning content and encouraging reading skills. Too often after elementary school, students are never read aloud to. That means they no longer have models for reading fluency, opportunities to hear new books, or be inspired to read by hearing books of interest to them. I try to find books based on our content and read aloud to my students as often as I can.
We can not just be dependent on our English teachers to continue to encourage a love of reading after elementary school. It is so vital that students see the importance of reading across all subject areas. I’m determined to pass on my love of reading to my students through real life experiences in my science classroom. How do you include ways to encourage reading in your classroom?
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Lisa Barnard
Lisa Barnard is a 6th-grade science teacher in the city of Flagstaff. She has experience in both elementary and middle school settings. This will be her 11th year of teaching and she loves inspiring a joy of learning in her students. She also mentors university students who are interested in becoming teachers. After earning her bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Northern Arizona University, she went on to also get her masters in Elementary Education with a Reading Specialist Endorsement. In her free time, she enjoys landscape photography, reading, collecting fossils, writing, and hiking around Arizona with her husband Nick and their two dogs.