Upon years of research into best practices in reading, I unearthed an amazing approach to teaching reading that has been shown to consistently boost student performance. This secret could cause a stir across American classrooms if implemented widely. The editors of Engage have permitted me to share it for a limited time, in the hope that this highly-innovative teaching strategy catches the fancy of policymakers, the media and general public. It is a remarkable “reading makeover” that could save countless precious budget dollars while producing phenomenal results.

It has been shown to work with all ages. I have found that I can train teachers, administrators and parents how to easily and affordably implement this program in a matter of weeks. It has been shown to work from coast to coast, in both affluent schools and under-resourced ones, from the inner city to suburbs to rural areas. English language learners and special needs students have seen dramatic improvements in reading using this innovative method. There are even unconfirmed reports that many educators report significant increases in their job satisfaction when utilizing this technique.

So what exactly is this “reading makeover?”

It starts with you providing a variety of high-interest reading materials in your classroom, from magazines to digital books, newspapers to novels, poetry to informational texts.

But you already knew that, right?

And it should go without saying that the best way to improve students’ reading aptitudes and attitudes is by giving them plenty of opportunities throughout the day to actually read various texts and discuss reactions to these texts. This is commonplace in today’s schools, isn’t it?

We recognize that reading aloud to students of any age is one of the single best ways to engage students’ interest in reading. So that’s why you can go into any middle school or high school as well as elementary schools in America and see students absorbed in a teacher’s daily read aloud.

Right?

Sadly, this is not the case. A lot of really smart folks with good intentions have spent a lot of money searching for The Holy Grail of teaching reading, ignoring the solution that has been right under their noses all along. Some really good educators have quit their jobs in frustration, while concerned parents across the United States search for answers to how they can help their children succeed.

At the same time, scores of children have been bombarded with test preparation materials while being denied the very resources that have been shown to improve reading: interesting reading materials, time to read and discuss what they are reading in class, and daily read alouds.

One of the bummers about writing articles about the importance of reading to members of the International Reading Association is that it is preaching to the choir. So why devote any space to revealing best reading practices that everybody already knows about?

Well, there are plenty of folks (myself, included) who find themselves at the beginning of 2013 resolving to live healthier lifestyles, but how many of us will take action? I see so many educators who are fearful to devote any precious class time to reading for fun because they think it will seem they are wasting time that could be “better-spent” addressing Language Arts Standard 13.96.87. I constantly ask audiences attending my presentations the simple question: “What good is it teaching students how to read if they never want to read?”

Working with students of all ages, I have seen firsthand time and again that once students see reading as a pleasurable activity, they start to read more, and the more they read, the better they get at it. It does not matter if the students choose to read James Joyce or JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH; people who read more, read better.

I am on airplanes virtually every week, and I cannot remember the last time I sat next to someone reading Dostoevsky, Moliere, or Shakespeare, but I sit next to plenty of folks who read USA TODAY, PEOPLE magazine, and FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. And that’s great! These are folks who choose to read rather than look at the back of an airplane seat or watch an airline’s edited version of the latest Jennifer Lopez movie. People who read make so much better conversationalists.

The secret to teaching reading rests in the title of this blog: Engage.

So I challenge administrators to engage their faculties by opening faculty meetings with great read alouds (and if you are an administrator reading this, I will gladly provide you with your own customized list).

I challenge teachers to talk about their favorite reading materials with students, ask students which genres and authors rock their worlds and read aloud a variety of texts to their classes, while also providing time in class for students to read different works.

I challenge schools to fund their libraries and stock shelves with titles that will appeal to broader audiences than those studying 18th century British literature.

I challenge parents to support their local independent bookstores and public libraries and make reading an integral part of their daily rituals. And I challenge policymakers who are so interested in reading research to start reading the research.

Folks, we know what to do. I used to always send my students home with one maxim: education is valuable, but execution is priceless. Are you up for the challenge? If you choose to provide your students with lots of interesting reading materials, facilitate time to read in class with discussions about what various individuals are reading, and read aloud a variety of great texts in your classroom, I guarantee that your students —however young or old—will become lifelong, passionate and more proficient readers.

Now make it happen.

Invited to speak to over 100 international venues last year alone, Dr. Danny Brassell is considered “America’s Leading Reading Ambassador.” He is part of the Invited Speaker Symposium, "Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic: Revisited Through the Common Core State Standards," with Ruth Culham, Steven Layne and Greg Tang at IRA's 58th Annual Convention, April 19-22, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas. Danny (www.dannybrassell.com) will also present a session on building home-school reading connections.



Top Literacy Experts to Discuss New Standards at IRA Convention

In Other Words: Kids Must Taste Academic Fun!

In the spring of 2012, a group of English Language Arts educators from Franklin, Massachusetts launched a highly successful middle school reading program around THE HUNGER GAMES. In this five-part special series, the teachers who orchestrated the whole-school read will detail, step-by-step, this year’s initiative. Parts I and 2 focused on how the team made this year’s book selection, THE HOBBIT, and encouraged student participation. Part 3 looked at some unexpected pitfalls the group faced based on book selection, while Part 4 recounted how the group decided which readers would get to see the film adaptation. In the final installment of this five-part series, Mary Cotillo and Erin O’Leary recap this year’s program, and talk about attending the Boston premiere of the movie.

“All good stories deserve embellishment.” —Gandalf

We don’t know if that line is in the novel THE HOBBIT, but when Ian McKellan muttered it in his signature Gandalf growl in the film, we looked at each other over our 3D glasses. All good stories deserve embellishment, indeed.

On Monday, December 10th, 40 lucky Horace Mann Middle School students assembled in small groups outside of the auditorium. Girls, excitedly fingering their hair, complimented each other’s holiday dresses; boys nodded in acknowledgement, straightening their neckties. There were a few hobbits. One bearded wizard. A bunch of parents, eager to see us off, held cameras and phones aloft.

At 5 PM sharp, our perfectly motley crew exited the school and into the winter twilight. As we loaded the students onto the waiting coach bus, whispers of “Is this for us?” caught our ears, and we began to understand. They felt special. They felt exclusive. They were excited to be singled out for special attention and proud that they had earned it.

Warner Brothers gifted us 50 tickets to the Boston premiere of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. They treated our kids to reserved seats, pins, bookmarks, and words of praise. As the theater darkened and the title emerged on the screen, you could hear the shrieks, giggles and spontaneous applause. Our eyes filled with tears as we heard our cherubs whisper the opening lines right along with the movie, “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”

During the three-hour epic, it was hard to pay attention; at times, living this through their eyes was too distracting. Besides, every time a vocabulary word was used in dialogue, Ms. Cotillo was summoned in the darkness and flashed a two-fingered V. “Vocab!” they mouthed. We knew how memorable this experience was going to be, but we didn’t anticipate the change we felt in our kids. They had been raised up. The smiles didn’t leave their faces for the remainder of the week, and neither did ours.

The night was magical and amazing and fantastic and memorable. But instead of focusing on the reward for the reading and the hard work, we have a different plan for this, the final installment documenting our Hobbit journey.

Bilbo Baggins had a million reasons not to embark on his adventure. He didn’t have anything to prove. He didn’t have anything missing in his life. He didn’t need adventure; it wasn’t his thing. He had never done it before. His days were already filled. He liked things just as they were.

Maybe you’re reading this thinking, “I have too much on my plate,” or “I already encourage literacy in my students, why do I need to do any more?” Or even this: “You want me to take hundreds of kids to the movies? Are you joking?”

We hear you. We get it. And we promise we won’t think any less of you if you decide to return to your hobbit hole and your second breakfast. But just in case you, like Bilbo, feel the Took stirring inside of you, allow us to share with you our incentive (or 11) for sacrificing all of our free time and most of our sanity to the literacy gods.

It happens when you least expect it. Usually on the day you come to school over-tired, tapped for ideas, and a little zany; questioning why you were crazy enough to sign up for this adventure. Frustrated over one more complaint, one more request, or one more email you just can’t answer. And then…

No. 1: A beaming 7th grader stops you in the hallway, “I couldn’t put it down! I read all day Friday and Saturday until I finished. Omigosh, I loved it! I read it in two days. I’ve never done that before!”

No. 2: You check your voicemail and hear, “Miss O’Leary, I just needed to tell you. Alex finished THE HOBBIT last night. He read for over two hours and wouldn’t stop, even though it was way past his bedtime. I’ve never seen him more proud of himself. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you.”

No. 3: Upon returning his borrowed (and completely read) copy of THE HOBBIT, a struggling reader chooses a new book and says, “I feel like I can read this one. It looked so hard to me before. There were so many words on the page. But now I think I can do it.”

No. 4: You step into a sub-separate classroom to lead a read-aloud, and become audience to Gollum and Bilbo riddling each other, complete with accents, blocking, props, costumes, and scenery.

No. 5: You hear stories (and field chaperone requests from) families who are reading the book together. Fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents all get in on the act.

No. 6: A student gazes upon their hard won permission slip to attend the movie, earned after successfully answering the riddling questions, and quietly marvels, “I get to go. I did it.”

No. 7: Despite the cautions of their Wilson instructor as to the complexity of Lord of the Rings trilogy, a recently initiated member of the Tolkien fan club retorts, “I don’t care if they’re hard. I can do it.” (One day later he was on page 25).

No. 8: The A period class is joyfully hijacked by an overzealous eighth grade boy who desperately wants to sing his rendition of the Misty Mountain song. When you acquiesce, his is spontaneously accompanied by his peers singing harmony.

No. 9: Students begin to recognize allusions to Tolkien in other places—DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, ORIGAMI YODA, even FAMILY GUY—and can’t wait to tell you.

No. 10: Your principal, still slightly shell shocked from last year’s reading bonanza, dons a Gandalf hat and agrees to bigger and better plans because “at least we’re reading something cool this year.”

No. 11: You stand at the front of a bus and gaze upon students clad in prom dresses, tiaras, cloaks, breeches, beards, and bellies, radiating an aura of confidence and pride. You will never see early adolescents carry themselves with such poise.

It happens. The tales above are absolutely true stories, free from any embellishment. You will be brought to your knees by the stories of the struggling readers who now, perhaps for the very first time, can add “finishing a book” to their list of accomplishments. Talk about an unexpected journey.

We shed our tears the Friday before the book was “due,” when our dream of one hundred little hobbits was realized. By the time we put our handkerchiefs away, we’d added 85 more to our party. 185 students read Tolkien. Voluntarily. (If you’re a numbers person, that’s 37% of the entire student body.)

Never underestimate your students. To those wise, credentialed, professional adults who challenged our choice, insisting it was too difficult for our students—“Kids today don’t appreciate complex text,” they decried—the numbers spoke for themselves. A full two-thirds of the sixth grade—the youngest children in the school—accompanied us on our journey.

We opened the door and our hobbits proceeded to kick it down. They were confident and self-assured. They were chosen. And on at least one magical night in December, they held their heads just a bit higher. All because they were readers.

That’s why we did it last year.

This is why we’ll do it again.

Mary Cotillo and Erin O’Leary both teach at Horace Mann Middle School in Franklin, Massachusetts.



The Quest, Part 4: Some Shall Not Pass

The Quest, Part 3: Goblin Caves and Spider Webs

The Quest, Part 2: Monday Morning Hobbit-Backing

Six Buses: The Quest for School-Wide Reading Begins!

photo: ARACELOTA via photopin cc

It's been estimated that 90% of all paragraphs contain the main idea in the opening sentence. This fun exercise, inspired by the popular competition show DANCING WITH THE STARS, divides the class into teams, determined to verify or negate the accuracy of this assertion, in relation to a given passage.

Here's how to CARRIE out the activity and LENgthen the pleasure, while avoiding BRUNO-bombastics.

Find a passage with at least eight paragraphs. Make copies—one for each member of the two groups. Ideally each group will have six-to-eight members. Three students will serve as judges. And two students will be the "stars." If the class has more than 21 students, have the remaining students answer these questions while the other groups are doing their assignments.

• What is the value of knowing the main idea of a paragraph?
• Where can the main idea be found?
• When does it make sense to skim the rest of the paragraph once the main idea has been identified?
• What kinds of reading material should never be skimmed, but rather should be read very carefully, word for word?
• What is the advantage of placing the main idea in the first sentence of a paragraph?
• What is the advantage of placing the main idea in the last sentence of a paragraph?

Have Team 1 read the first four paragraphs and decide, as a team, what is the main idea in each paragraph. They will write their four ideas on flip chart paper.

Have Team 2 read the last four paragraphs and collaborate regarding the main idea for each of their paragraphs. They will also write the four main ideas on chart paper.

Two students (ideally, one boy and one girl) will be "the stars." They will read only the first sentence in each paragraph (the "starts") and will write each one on chart paper. (There will be eight sentences altogether.)

Appoint three judges. (For fun, you could seat them as a panel with the DWTS judges' names in front of each seat.) While they wait for the main ideas to be recorded by the teams and by the stars, the judges can read the passage. They should not be asked to determine what the main ideas are--they should merely read. Have three paddles with numbers on them for each judge to hold up: 5 would mean "barely the same," 8 would mean "close," and 9 or 10 would mean "virtually the same."

Team 1 begins by telling the judges what the first paragraph's main idea is. The "stars" come next. They give their main idea--viz., the start of the paragraph for the first paragraph.

The judges score how well the stars did with their main ideas. If their first-sentence ideas are close to what the teams wrote, after reading the full paragraph, the judges will award an 8. If the two main-idea presentations are not at all alike, the judges must give a 5. And if the two presentations are virtually the same, the scores will be 10.

Continue with the team reports, the stars reports of "starts," and the scoring until all eight paragraphs have been covered.

Depending on the judges' scores, lead a discussion regarding where the main idea is typically found and whether or not students can count on finding it in the first sentence of a paragraph. Continue the discussion, using the answers to questions in Step 1. (If a team worked on these questions, have them provide a report.)

Segue from reading the main idea to using the main idea. Divide the class into three teams and have each develop a one-paragraph letter to one of the three DWTS judges. Use this as the main-idea sentence:

Our class worked a "Dancing with the StarTs" reading exercise.

If you think your students would like the attention, notify the local media of the exercise and the subsequent letters that were written to the actual judges. Here's the address:

Dancing With the Stars
c/o CBS Television City
7800 Beverly Blvd.
Bungalow #1
Los Angeles, CA 90036

And, if the letters are mailed, re-invite the media to do a story about the responses received if and when Len, Carrie Ann, and Bruno reply!

Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D. writes extensively about education topics. Among her books on the subject are 500 CREATIVE CLASSROOM CONCEPTS and THE CRITICAL THINKING TOOL KIT.



Teaching Tips: Grammar Games to Deliver Fun and Confidence

Teaching Tips: Putting the 'Fun' in Reading Fundamentals