As teachers, we want students to read, read a lot, and Love to read. So, we assign 20 minutes of reading for homework and hand out reading logs for students to complete and render with a parent'south signature. Then, nosotros despair when kids tell united states they "hate" reading.

Perhaps the best, if counterintuitive, way to get kids to dear reading is to not exercise annihilation at all. Or, put another fashion, to free up our students' subsequently-school fourth dimension rather than lock it down with a reading log.

It'south been suggested before that reading logs kill the love of reading. In his book Raising Kids Who Read , Daniel T. Willingham argues that assigning reading fourth dimension or a reading log turns reading into work, which communicates to kids that it'south not worth doing for fun. Later all, why read for costless when someone volition give you a sticker, a course or an allowance?

So, reading logs are counterproductive, simply once we erase that always-nowadays reading assignment from the nightly homework, how tin nosotros nudge kids towards reading (and make them love it)?

  • Devote class time to sharing interesting facts: Spend some time each week having students share what they learned from reading that was interesting. The caveat: They take to read the fact or story outside of school and exist able to tell their peers where they read it.
  • Beefiness up your classroom library: Fill your classroom library with books, magazines and other high-interest reading material, and go far all check-out-able.
  • Send kids home with a question: Rather than sending students home with an assignment "to read," send them home with a question to answer. Then, they'll take to keep a fact-finding (read: reading) mission.

Have yous given up the reading log in your classroom? How did it become? Tell us most it in the comments.

Reading Homework