Bringing Whole Books Back to the Classroom

Listen to the interview with Jen Serravallo (transcript):

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I was fortunate to grow up in a house full of books. From birth, my parents read to me and my siblings, read on their own, and even did the most cringe things to encourage reading, like the day when I was fourteen — fourteen — and they announced in front of my friend Adam, whose primary hobby was making fun of me, that we were going to start doing FAMILY READING NIGHT once a week.

Adam NEVER let me live that one down.

My point is, I didn’t really need school to support my love of reading. But growing up in the 70s and 80s, I did get that support. There were lots of library visits and SSR periods and book reports and so on. I don’t think we were assigned a ton of whole books, but we were definitely reading real writing, written by people who had stories to tell and things to say.

Years later, as a middle school ELA teacher, I got to share that experience with my students. I have especially fond memories of our school book room, where we stored class sets of novels. I can still picture them: Tuck Everlasting; Holes; Freak the Mighty; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; and of course, The Outsiders. About 150 copies of each, stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves, waiting for us to choose them. It was a delicious feeling, moving them into crates, bringing them into my classroom, then signing out one copy per student, knowing we’d be going on a little journey together.

We would always do the first chapter together in class. I would read most of it myself, out loud, stopping to think aloud, get their reactions, maybe jot a few names down on the board to make sure we were all clear about who was talking and what was going on. I might have them read a little more silently, then touch base again as a group. I knew it took a while to get really sunk into a book, to have it grab you, so I never wanted to leave it to chance that they’d be able to do this on their own, at home. We had to get anchored together.

Those are good memories. Not all of my students did the reading like they were supposed to, and not everyone liked every book. There were days when kids were bored or hadn’t read or pretended to read. But we were sharing something: a piece of art, someone’s vision brought to life, a complete experience carefully crafted and shaped, then laid out on paper, wrapped in a cover, and packaged so you could literally carry it around in your backpack. With every book, we got to have conversations about people and life and why people do the things they do. Apart from the academic value, it felt like we were doing something real, participating in a long, long tradition of people capturing their thoughts and experiences and passing them down through the years.

The first time I encountered the idea of “passages” was around 2010, when I was supervising preservice teachers at the university level. I was helping one of my student teachers create an assessment aligned with our required ELA standards, and she told me she had to use the assessment issued by the school where she was placed. The assessment was all multiple-choice and it was all based on short reading passages. After going back and forth with her for a while, it finally dawned on me that her students weren’t reading actual books. They weren’t even reading complete stories or articles. Just “passages.”

At the time, I thought this was an isolated situation. I didn’t realize it was a sign of where reading instruction was headed.

In the years since, I’ve heard more and more about classrooms where students spend most of their reading time working with short texts and excerpts, while whole books have become an occasional extra, if they’re included at all. And although I understand the value of teaching students specific reading skills and strategies, I have to wonder what gets lost when we spend so little time actually reading books.

That’s what we explore on the podcast with literacy expert Jennifer Serravallo. We looked at how whole books lost their place in many classrooms, why reading them matters, and how teachers can make room for them again, even within a packed curriculum. Her new classroom kits — Whole Book Comprehension, Grades 1–6, are a ready-to-use resource that can be added to any literacy program or core curriculum.

Why Books Are Disappearing from Some Classrooms

Whole-book reading has gradually lost its place in many classrooms, a shift that likely has several contributing factors, including increased emphasis on standardized testing and changes in how reading is taught. More recently, science of reading legislation has prompted another wave of curriculum changes, with many schools adopting new core literacy programs. Serravallo has observed that some core literacy programs leave little room for whole books.

“Many of these core programs rely on short excerpts, short stories, articles,” she says.

Shorter texts certainly have instructional value. As Serravallo explains, “They help kids to connect across texts. You could build text sets to develop concept knowledge. You can get through a lot of different texts together in a short period of time.” The problem is that with so much material packed into some of these programs, teachers often have little time left for anything else; something has to give.

“I’ve been in schools where they used to have a classroom library filled with books that kids could select from,” Serravallo says. “And they’ve put them in the closet. They’ve put them away. Because, ‘Oh, we don’t have time for that anymore.’” She has also seen school libraries converted into technology centers, reducing opportunities for students to browse and select books.

Why Whole-Book Reading is Important, Especially Now

There’s something about getting lost in a good book that you just can’t replicate by reading a collection of shorter texts. Serravallo points to the work of researcher Maryanne Wolf, author of Reader, Come Home, who describes a “deep reading state” that happens when we become fully immersed in a text. “It’s an opportunity to build empathy, take different perspectives on, do deeper inferential and critical work,” Serravallo explains. These are especially important skills in an age when AI makes it so easy to outsource our thinking.

Reading whole books also helps students build executive functioning skills like sustaining attention, keeping track of information over time, and connecting ideas across chapters. These days, with so much of our time spent scrolling through short bursts of content, many of us have gotten out of the habit of sitting down with a book for any length of time. Serravallo admits that even she struggles to get back into reading novels after spending long stretches working on other projects. The good news is that we can rebuild that reading stamina with practice, and teachers can help students do the same.

And there’s some evidence that whole-book reading can lead to significant improvements in comprehension. In a 2019 study, teachers set aside their usual approach to reading instruction and spent 12 weeks reading two challenging novels at a fast pace with their students, providing support along the way. By the end, students made gains equivalent to an average of 8.5 months of progress in reading comprehension, while struggling readers gained an average of 16 months.

So bringing whole books back isn’t just about helping students enjoy reading again. It’s about giving them the time and support to become stronger, more thoughtful, more capable readers.

Looking for books to build your classroom library? Our 2024 interview with three award-winning librarians offers some outstanding titles to consider: Curating a More Inclusive Library

How To Make Space for Whole Books Again

Even teachers who want to bring back whole-book reading may struggle to find time for it in an already packed curriculum. But the goal isn’t to return to the days when novels dominated reading instruction. Instead, Serravallo suggests finding ways to work whole books into what’s already being taught:

• Take a break between units or modules. Look for places where you can tighten your existing curriculum a little bit, especially lessons that repeat skills students have already mastered. Then use that time for a short, focused whole-class book study. Rather than stretching a novel out over six or eight weeks, Serravallo suggests moving through it at a brisk pace, possibly in just one week.
• Connect books to content studies. Look for whole books, especially nonfiction, that align with topics students are studying in science or social studies. Reading these books can become part of the content instruction rather than something you have to find additional time for.
• Use small-group time or book clubs. If students already have time set aside for centers, independent work, or small-group instruction, some of that time could be devoted to reading and discussing whole books. Teachers can provide vocabulary support or teach a reading strategy, then have students read independently or with partners before coming together to discuss.
• Make use of intervention or enrichment blocks. If your school has these in place, some of that time might be used for whole-book reading.
• Try whole-book reading in summer school. Summer programs can offer an opportunity to build reading stamina and engagement through book clubs, especially when teachers have more flexibility to organize instruction around complete books.

Ultimately, the goal is to find a consistent place for whole-book reading in the schedule, whether that’s a regular block of time or a recurring break between units. For teachers working within required curricula, making that space may require conversations with administrators about what can be adjusted or scaled back.

Finding the time is worth the effort. Students need opportunities to develop the stamina and confidence that come from working their way through an entire book, especially if they’re not accustomed to doing so. With the right support and enough practice, they can begin to see themselves differently as readers. As Serravallo puts it, we want students to develop the confidence to say, “Yes, I’m a reader. I can do this. And I want to.”

Everything You Need to Bring Books Back

Whole Book Comprehension, Grades 1–6 is Serravallo’s low-prep, high-impact resource that can be added to any literacy program or core curriculum. Each grade-level kit provides everything a teacher needs to thoughtfully implement more whole-book reading in their classroom, including a curated class set of eight books. Learn more about the kits here.