Dusting Off an Old Practice to Make Reading Fun Again

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From the time I was a child, you could give me a book, a snack, a comfy chair, and a rainy day and I could get lost in a book for hours. Sometimes a search party might have even been involved. I’m 61 now, and not much has changed. An hour with my latest mystery novel over coffee at the local Starbucks? Absolutely. A few paragraphs while waiting in the doctor’s office? Oh, yeah. Reading before bed? Absolute bliss! It’s no secret that inveterate readers love to immerse themselves in a myriad of fictional universes such Hogwarts or Middle-earth or delve deep into Gladwell’s Tipping Points or Outliers. 

But not everybody feels this way about reading. My own brother — who is incredibly intelligent, younger than I am, and has already paid off his house (what?!?!) — once told me, “I never read anything unless I absolutely have to.” After recovering from my shock, I wondered what that looks like. Does he approach an intersection and say, “Well, that sign is red and it’s an octagon, so I should probably stop”? I just hope he has good brakes.

Like most language arts/English teachers, I always wanted to share my love of reading with my students. But with the advent of technology, the internet, and cell phones, it seemed like reading for pleasure (not to mention the requisite attention span) had gone the way of buggy whips, writing quills, and powdered wigs. Every single day we seem to move closer to a society that simply doesn’t read. 

When wondering how to engage my students as readers, I started by reflecting on my own reading history and what initially got me excited about the printed word. The first book series I remember reading was in fourth and fifth grade. The Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton concerned a group of juvenile detectives who solved mysteries in their neighborhood with the help of their little dog, Scamper. I was hooked, and I couldn’t wait to get to the next installment. Eventually, I devoured them all. The Secret Seven books were clearly the gateway drug to my love of mysteries by Michael Connelly, James Patterson, and David Balducci. 

Next, I skimmed the research. There were plenty of studies replete with data on engagement, reading strategies, and Lexile scores. I also read the volumes penned by wise and caring reading gurus like Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller. All of it was helpful, but I felt like something was missing. I was looking for something extra, something different, something more personal. So my question became, “How do I encourage my students to read in a way that lights a fire for them, so that they don’t see it as just another torturous reading assignment from their dumb teacher?”

I eventually found a process that, while not perfect, had a profound effect on my students, and I want to share it with you here. It’s a little revelation I called “independent silent reading.”

Of course I’m teasing. Independent silent reading is nothing new. We even did it every Monday in my own high school and called it ISR (actually, then it stood for “Intensive Silent Reading” because the 70s were crazy). 

I think, though, it’s my point of view on ISR that might be unique.  Whenever I teach 9^th graders, I always dedicate 10 minutes for silent reading at the beginning of every period. Students choose their own books, and we all read together in silence. Over time, this practice helps build fluency, expands vocabulary, and fosters a love of reading. It’s a simple, effective strategy that not only improves reading skills, but also increases reading stamina. And 9^th grade seems like a good foundational place to start. The way I do it, we not only build reading endurance but, if we’re lucky, we release endorphins. Essentially, it’s like a little reading gym. 

Study after study proves that silent reading improves reading skills, but my goal was not to collect reading data, do reading logs, or improve their Lexile scores. I implemented my silent reading activity based on what I intuitively knew that I loved about reading and how it worked best for me and the people who I knew were readers. I desperately wanted to remove the pressure and the trauma from my students’ previous reading expectations. I wanted something more creative and fun. The irony, of course, is that when they learn to enjoy the practice, the Lexile scores will improve as a matter of course. In short, I wanted them to see what I saw in reading.

I knew I would not make converts of them all. So I looked at it this way: If you love reading, you’re not my guy. If you hate reading, you’re not my guy. I’m looking for the person on the fence, the person who doesn’t take the time to read, the person who spends the 10 minutes reading and, before they know it, becomes engrossed in a book or falls in love with an author’s prose, and says to themselves, “I didn’t know reading could be this fun. Where do I find the next book? How can I incorporate this into my life?” 

Those are my people.  

The Logistics

Crucially, my students can pick whatever they want to read. As most teachers know, when students have choice, there is more buy-in. Graphic novels? Totally fine. Comic books or magazines? Totally fine. The backs of cereal boxes? Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but totally fine. As long as they are reading for the ten minutes, what they read is irrelevant. The only rule is that they must have a hard copy of whatever they’re reading. I tried to allow them to read on devices but, inevitably, they were distracted by notifications, games, YouTube, etc. So now we go Old School.

Perhaps the most unconventional part of the process is that the silent reading activity is not attached to a grade. I needed some accountability, of course, so my approach is that, every week, everybody gets a 20/20. They start with a perfect score. Everyone has an A. All they have to do is read. The only way to lose points is if they don’t have a book, aren’t reading, are talking, reaching into their backpacks, or staring off into space. If I see those behaviors, a few points come off here and there. Mostly, however, everyone keeps their 20/20. That way they don’t have to worry about the grade. My unconventional goal is to foster an environment where they learn to organically enjoy the process of reading without worrying about points. 

I have only three iron-clad expectations for our reading time: 1. Eyes on the page 2. Feet on the floor 3. Absolute silence. I’m essentially a hippie at heart, so I would love if we had couches and bean bags and could lounge around the room while we read, but with 36 plus students, this simply isn’t possible.

Student Feedback

At least once a semester, I survey my students to see how it’s going. Overwhelmingly, they almost always report that they’ve learned to read faster, have increased reading attention span and stamina, understand more words, and — most importantly — have continued reading on their own. It’s very reminiscent of Mr. Miyagi’s “wax on, wax off” philosophy. If they simply repeat the behavior, they don’t even realize what they’re learning or how they’re improving. Many also say they enjoy the quiet, structured time to just focus and relax. I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t. It was a lovely insight that added to the charm of what we were doing.

Here are some actual comments and key takeaways from the most recent survey (mechanics errors intact): 

My favorite part of silent reading is:

• The silence 
• Reading a book I like
• the fact that we have it because i want to read all day but its difficult with all my classes its nice to just have a class that has time designated to it.
• when i’m able to get lost in what i’m reading.
• We get to do something that we enjoy for 10 minutes and even if we don’t enjoy reading we get 10 minutes off of class.
• the class is quiet
• nothing, i dont really like it. i understand why we have to do it for English but it is just boring as the first thing we do in the morning. (author’s note: As I said, you can’t win ‘em all. . .)

Since silent reading I have noticed: 

• I get faster reading
• Reading a little bit every day adds up
• I’ve been reading more outside of school to continue parts of a chapter I left off on
• I have enjoyed it more than i first did, i still struggle a bit to focus but its improved.
• that i tend to read more at home
• Reading isn’t as hard as I thought 
• that i can read better and that i have the urge to continue reading more
• I’ve taken interest in actually reading, I don’t hate reading I’ve read before all the time online but never actual books. Silent reading makes me wanna lay down on a cold day with earphones laying down reading.
• Time goes slower. 

My LEAST favorite part of silent reading is:

• My least favorite part of silent reading is having to be completely quiet.
• Actually trying to focus on reading
• we don’t get enough time
• When I don’t feel like reading and I can’t get my mind into the book so I don’t know what to do for 10 minutes except stare at my book.
• Having to stay still looking at a book because I get easily distracted
• The reading i guess (author’s note: this made me LOL). 

Encountering Pushback

This whole activity started when I saw my students’ reading skills diminishing. I knew I had to do something and, personally, I blamed it all on the distractions of devices and the internet. But implementing this practice was not without its challenges. I faced pushback from colleagues who saw independent reading as unstructured and unproductive. Many called it “a waste of time,” apparently forgetting that we used to do a similar activity as a whole department decades before. 

Similarly, when I initially proposed a 50-minute reading session once a week (as we did at my high school eons before), my principal also dismissed it as a waste of instructional time. So I adjusted my approach — 10 minutes a day, five days a week. Suddenly, she was onboard. Same amount of reading time but, when framed differently, it became more acceptable for some reason. Math is funny that way. 

I also had to win over my students. Over the course of the semester (and eventually the year), I tried many methods to fully engage my students and to create new and enthusiastic readers. I took them on library tours (and the librarian would give them an orientation, complete with a scavenger hunt). I had them exchange book recommendations via shared docs, presentations, and even partner and small group sharing. I often chatted with them individually about books they particularly liked (or were particularly struggling with). Even though it couldn’t always be quantified, I felt that these little moments of sharing and exploration made a huge difference. 

There’s an old saying in teaching, however: You can’t save ‘em all. In fact, this was one of my earliest and hardest lessons learned an educator. But getting every single student to love reading would be perfection and perfection doesn’t exist. So in this case — despite my most genuine and energetic efforts — some students will still resist reading. For whatever reason, sitting quietly and decoding black squiggles on a page is simply not for them.

And I’ve made peace with that. In those situations, I just hope that The Universe eventually provides someone else along the way who has the key to that particular lock, when I did not. But it wasn’t from lack of trying. Because I believe strongly in the impact of reading. And I believe that, as author Kate DiCamillo once said, “Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.”

I know that many teachers already do silent reading in their classes, and I’m sure they are very successful. But maybe we need to add a more holistic, intuitive approach and focus on a way to also help build a love of reading. And maybe the independent in “independent reading” can also mean independent from a grade so that we model more intrinsic benefits of reading. By normalizing reading as a daily routine rather than an occasional activity, without even realizing it, we will ensure that our students are developing lifelong skills that would better help them understand the world.

And maybe, just maybe, they’ll have a little fun along the way.

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