Monday marks the start of a new semester at Mitchell Middle School. It also is the day that students will be turning in their December reading logs. Prior to Christmas break, I had one request of my students: that they continue to meet their weekly reading goals during the two-week hiatus from school. Some students asked why they needed to keep reading, but most understood my request. A two-week break from school without any reading whatsoever could potentially undo what we've been trying to accomplish all of first semester: establish the habit of reading outside of school. I compared not reading for two weeks to an athlete abandoning his training schedule for two weeks for pizza binges and vegging out on the couch. A reader, like an athlete, would regress.
Before students and I left for break, we made sure to have a book to take home to read - one students had already been reading or a new one (or two, in case they finished the first one). When students return on Monday, I will check their reading logs to make sure that during the two weeks they were gone, they still met their weekly reading goals (these are based on students' individual reading rates, which vary according to reading ability and the complexity of the text students have chosen to read). I admit that I'm a bit apprehensive that some students will have neglected their reading over Christmas break, but I also suspect that many students will surprise me with their page totals. (It was a pretty cold break, so I'm hoping students found time to curl up with a good book.)
As you may know, there's plenty of research out there to support the importance of kids' reading at home. I came across this Huffington Post article recently: A Parent's Part in Motivating Independent Reading. The article some great tips for establishing independent reading time in the home. As the article states, "Independent reading is reading for the love of reading," and during many instances during first semester, students determined their reading choices - by genre, author, topic, text complexity; developed and refined their reading tastes; talked and wrote about what they were reading; and did a whole lot of reading period.
Thus, at the start of this new semester, my humble request to you, parents, is to continue to cultivate your child's reading habit at home each and every evening. We know that our kids will only get busier as they get older, so establishing a strong reading "stamina" now is absolutely crucial not only to their academic success in the future but also to developing a life-long love of reading.
Before students and I left for break, we made sure to have a book to take home to read - one students had already been reading or a new one (or two, in case they finished the first one). When students return on Monday, I will check their reading logs to make sure that during the two weeks they were gone, they still met their weekly reading goals (these are based on students' individual reading rates, which vary according to reading ability and the complexity of the text students have chosen to read). I admit that I'm a bit apprehensive that some students will have neglected their reading over Christmas break, but I also suspect that many students will surprise me with their page totals. (It was a pretty cold break, so I'm hoping students found time to curl up with a good book.)
As you may know, there's plenty of research out there to support the importance of kids' reading at home. I came across this Huffington Post article recently: A Parent's Part in Motivating Independent Reading. The article some great tips for establishing independent reading time in the home. As the article states, "Independent reading is reading for the love of reading," and during many instances during first semester, students determined their reading choices - by genre, author, topic, text complexity; developed and refined their reading tastes; talked and wrote about what they were reading; and did a whole lot of reading period.
Thus, at the start of this new semester, my humble request to you, parents, is to continue to cultivate your child's reading habit at home each and every evening. We know that our kids will only get busier as they get older, so establishing a strong reading "stamina" now is absolutely crucial not only to their academic success in the future but also to developing a life-long love of reading.