Goal
2
Teaching Reading
Engagement
Focus, Stamina, and Building
a Reading Life
• Why is this goal important?
You could be the most eloquent teacher, the best strategy group facilitator, the most
insightful conferrer. But if you send your kids back for independent reading and
they don’t read, then they won’t make the progress you are hoping and working for
(Allington 2011). To put it another way, “Without engagement, we’ve got nothing”
(Serravallo 2010).
Engagement is everything. Research has shown that the amount of time kids
spend practicing, on-task, with eyes on print, makes the biggest difference to their
success as readers, and across content areas (Allington 2011; Anderson, Wilson, and
Fielding 1988; Krashen 2004; Cunningham and Stanovich 1991; Stanovich and Cunningham 1993; Pressley et al. 2000; Taylor, Frye, and Maruyama 1990).
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An engaged reader is often one who is “motivated to read, strategic in their
approaches to comprehending what they read, knowledgeable in their construction of
meaning from text, and socially interactive while reading” (Guthrie, Wigfield, and You
2012, 602). This means that classrooms in which independent reading is not always
a solo task and kids interact in partnerships and clubs will likely have more engaged
readers (see Chapter 12). It also means that teachers need to work to help readers
construct meaning (see Chapters 5 through 11) and that an engagement problem
may actually be a symptom of something else—a child who is not understanding, for
example. To say it another way, sometimes to help readers with the goal of engagement, you actually need to work on comprehension (Ivey and Johnston 2013).
When you’ve ruled out comprehension as the root of an engagement issue and
want to focus on engagement itself, you will find that the goal has a few parts. Some
may argue that helping children to select books that are a good fit in terms of readability and that will be interesting to them in terms of content should come first
(Miller 2009; Von Sprecken, Kim, and Krashen 2000). Kids’ attention and their ability
to manipulate that focus and bring it back to the task at hand is also important.
Stamina also comes into play; the amount of time readers can sustain their reading
often requires incremental growth over time and strategies to support that increase.
When all of these are in place, readers may attain a condition that Atwell refers to as
being “in the reading zone” (2007) or what Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” (2008).
• How do I know if this goal is right
for my student?
My favorite tool for figuring out who needs support with engagement is the engagement
inventory (Figure 2.A; Serravallo 2010, 2013b, 2014). Essentially a kidwatching tool, it
can be used to record student behaviors and signs of engagement and disengagement for
one entire reading period, instead of conferring or pulling small groups together. I look
for patterns within the class to discover which students need which instruction.
Book logs (Figure 2.B) can also be helpful if they’re honestly kept. For kids at level
K and above, you may use a log that asks a child to record start and end times and
start and end pages, and look for a rate of about three-quarters of a page per minute.
Much less may mean the child is getting distracted. The book titles over time also tell
a story about likes and dislikes.
Interest inventories (Figure 2.C) help to match kids to books when they are having
a hard time doing so independently, especially when the inventories ask questions
about nonreading things, like hobbies, favorite movies, or TV shows.
Teaching Reading Engagement
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Figure 2.A An engagement
inventory allows teachers to
record reading behaviors to
decide on goals relating to
engagement.
Figure 2.B Book logs
can be a helpful tool to get
information about reading
histories, reading rate, and
more.
Figure 2.C Interest inventories are
powerful ways to help
teachers match kids to
books, especially when
they ask about more
than reading.
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Strategies for Engagement at a Glance
Strategy
Levels
Genres/
Text Types
Skills
2.1 A Perfect Reading Spot
Any
Any
Focus
2.2 Vary the Length or Type of Text (“Break Reads”)
Any
Any
Focus
2.3 Reread to Get Back in Your Book
Any
Any
Monitoring engagement
2.4 Keep Your Eyes and Mind in the Book
Any
Any
Focus, monitoring meaning
2.5 Retell and Jump Back In
Any
Any
Retelling, monitoring meaning
2.6 Fixing the Fuzziness
Any
Any
Monitoring meaning
2.7 Prime Yourself with Prior Knowledge
Any
Any
Focus, activating prior knowledge
2.8 Set a Timed Goal
Any
Any
Stamina
2.9 Most Desirable/Least Desirable
Any
Any
Focus, stamina
2.10 “Party” Ladder
Any
Any
Stamina, focus
2.11 Purposes for Reading Go/Stop Mat
A–I
Any
Stamina
2.12 Ask Questions to Engage with the Text
E and above
Any
Questioning, focus, stamina
2.13 Mind Over Matter
E and above
Any
Attention, focus
2.14 Track Progress on a Stamina Chart
F and above
Any
Stamina, focus
2.15 Choose Like Books for a Best Fit
F and above
Any
Book choice
2.16 Choose Books with Your Identity in Mind
J and above
Any
Book choice
2.17 Visualize to Focus
J and above
Any
Visualizing, focus
2.18 Reading Log Rate Reflection
K and above
Any
Improving reading rate
2.19 Finding Reading Territories
K and above
Any
Book choice, focus
2.20Reflect on the Past and Plan for the Future
K and above
Any
Book choice, stamina
2.21You’ve Got to “Get It” to Be Engaged
K and above
Any
Monitoring for meaning
2.22Buzz About Books
K and above
Any
Recommending books
2.23Set Page Goals
L and above
Any
Monitoring engagement, focus,
stamina
2.24Read with a Focus to Focus
L and above
Any
Focus, stamina
2.25Monitor Your Stamina and Pace
L and above
Any
Stamina, monitoring for meaning
2.26Does It Engage Me?
L and above
Any
Book choice, focus
2.27Hear the Story
L and above
Fiction
Visualizing
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2.10 “Party” Ladder
Strategy Make very small, short-term goals for yourself (such as jotting on a sticky
note or reading a few pages). As you read, and as you accomplish each goal, move
your arrow sticky note up the ladder. When you get to the top, you’ll “party”—have a
short celebration you and I have agreed to.
Teaching Tip The idea behind this strategy is that you’ll be breaking down something that feels far away and possibly insurmountable to a student who is currently
having little success with reading for a long period of time. The “ladder” makes the
longer stretch of reading into a series of short-term goals with a reward. In essence,
each move to a new “step” will be a reward in and of itself as it is a visual representation of progress toward a larger goal.
Over time, as a student becomes more capable with the current series of steps, you’ll
want to help him or her modify the tool to add a new challenge. For instance, if a child
first planned to move up the ladder for every three minutes of independent reading,
then once the child is able to accomplish that with independence you may decide to
increase the short-term goal to five minutes. Or perhaps you’d want to add three more
three-minute steps on the ladder to increase the amount of time before the “party.”
In any case, the goal is not for the child to become dependent on this ladder to
read independently—quite the opposite. You want to increase the amount of time
or length of the task until it’s just one step: read for the entire independent reading
period. At that point, the party ladder can be eliminated as a tool altogether.
Who is this for?
Level
any
Genre / Text Type
any
skillS
stamina, focus
Prompts
•How long do you think you can read before we switch the task?
•What sorts of things will you do to help you stay focused—stretch breaks, jot
about your reading, retell in your mind?
•Let’s make a ladder together.
•Let’s practice using it. Place
your sticky note on the
bottom and let’s start.
•Yes! You stayed focused
that whole time. Move
your sticky note and do
what’s next.
•What will you do next?
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