In an earlier post, I explained why high school teachers need more support to increase reading assignment length. So how might district and school leaders provide this support? Here are four suggestions.
1. Protect (or even add) time for in-class reading. Anecdotally, English language arts (ELA) students are spending more time reading together in class. That’s not a bad thing, as it creates opportunities to monitor student comprehension, address challenging passages in real time, and model fluent reading. Given students’ struggles with core reading skills and the fact that they’re ever less likely to read on their own, it’s crucial for schools to carve out time for boosting reading skills and attention spans.
But instead of allowing reading to siphon time from all the other ELA work, build in time dedicated to reading. In high schools, double periods are fairly common for science, but in ELA they mostly serve students who need significant intervention. Why not create double periods for all students to spend more time reading?
Yes, additional reading time would necessarily take time away from something else. But—especially as reading scores continue to decline among younger students—if we want to see these struggling readers attempting whole books again by college, they’re going to need to spend more time reading. Being able to read longer texts matters not only for ELA, but also for history, science, and other subjects.
In my time as an ELA teacher, some of the most memorable days were those spent reading together. My freshmen delighted in exclaiming, “Villian, thou diest!” while wielding (very fake) weapon props to enact Roderigo and Cassio’s fight, and my juniors collapsed into giggles shrieking at Abigail Williams’s imaginary birds. These experiences boosted students’ engagement and comprehension simultaneously.
A double period—or block scheduling—would have allowed us to read these scenes and immediately debrief with discussion or writing: How does Shakespeare develop his characters? What is Arthur Miller implying about McCarthyism? A longer ELA period allows more opportunity not only for reading together, but also for ensuring comprehension.
2. Set schoolwide expectations for longer assigned readings. More school-day reading minutes are necessary but not sufficient; after all, students could simply read a larger number of short texts during that time. Similarly, using a curriculum centered on complete books is also vital but not the whole story (pun intended), since schools can and do cherry-pick excerpts from any curriculum.
That’s why building-level administrators and department chairs should also facilitate a culture shift toward longer reading assignments.
In the schools where I worked, the number of books I taught was a direct result of my department’s standard practice. Where I did my teaching residency, we taught a complete novel or play every unit (six to eight weeks); in my next school, it was two to three a year; in my last school, my class read only one play and one novel all year. Short stories, poems, and excerpts hardly prepare students for the book-a-week expectation typical in college. Teachers and students need established expectations that they will regularly complete whole texts.
3. At the same time, foster school culture around reading books for fun. As I told my students, reading is a lot like running. To improve, you need to do it regularly, starting with manageable distances and then building up. And just as it’s easier to start running in pleasant weather, it’s also easier to build reading stamina with an enjoyable book. Not every student has the interest, time, or energy to read for fun outside of school, but it’s worth pointing out that it doesn’t have to be The Scarlet Letter to be a book. Young adult works like Salt to the Sea (historical fiction), Black and White (contemporary fiction), and One of Us Is Lying (mystery) all served as engaging “gateway” novels for my students.
Still, I have mixed feelings about class time for students’ choice reading, even when whole books are required. Fully independent reading can foster conditions for both zoning out and disruptive behavior. And I want to love the idea of book clubs, where small groups each read a different choice text, but in practice, the logistics can be difficult (how will students be rigorously but fairly assessed? What happens when some students can focus for a full twenty minutes, while others can barely make it to five?).
Yet, there are other ways that teachers can encourage choice reading of whole books, including outside class. At my last school, teachers posted classroom signs indicating what they were currently reading for pleasure. Whether I was reading the goofy thriller Dial A for Aunties or a biography of Genghis Khan, my little notes inspired discussions about all sorts of books. Those informal moments may not pique every child’s interest, but opportunities for conversation about books offer an entry point for some. And, as we know, reading outside the classroom matters for reading achievement in school.
In schools with a library and librarian—unfortunately, now out of reach in many places—it’s worth spending class time connecting students to those resources. A librarian might visit and highlight books to check out. Class outings to a library, whether the school’s or a public one, can encourage kids to pick something to read outside of school hours, or maybe even if they (gasp) finish their classwork early.
4. Rethink test prep. Most standardized ELA tests ask students to respond to excerpted texts, whether through multiple-choice or written response questions. In anticipation of the dreaded Regents exam, for example, my students would read a rapid-fire series of short passages to practice identifying various literary devices. Can you identify and analyze the purpose of similes in this paragraph? Good! Onto the next excerpt.
This testing mechanism is neither ideal nor necessary—Question 3 of the AP English Literature exam avoids it—but revising major assessments is a tall order. As a more modest approach, schools can revisit how they conduct test prep. Students can practice the skills they’ll need throughout a longer assigned text. They can identify symbolism just as well in Fahrenheit 451 or Fences as they can in a shorter passage and, what’s more, they can explore it in more depth in an extended text, ideally even better preparing them for an assessment (if that’s the short-term goal). In fact, I’m particularly wary of teaching excerpts because a student cannot fully understand a literary device or an author’s message without looking at the text as a whole. Assigning complete books better serves both short-term (test prep) and long-term (humanities education) purposes.
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High schoolers need to read full books so that college students have the skills and stamina to read full books, whether those are novels, textbooks, or historical documents. But teachers can’t make change in a vacuum; they need structural and cultural support to make it happen.
