Approach #1: Creating a Community of Readers
A classroom is a mini-world for the teacher, and it also should be a mini-world for the students. Students should feel themselves being a part of this small world safely and comfortably and then they will be willing to dedicate to the development of this small world. It is significant to make the class a community of learners, readers and writers for students to learn and for teachers to teach and learn. When students feel secured, relaxed and comfortable in this community, they will be willing to participate, dedicate and share with other members in this community. This should starts from the very beginning of a new semester.
Approach #2: Get Students Involved
After creating the community, the next step is to get students involved and participate the activities in this community. Provide students chances to express their opinions about this community: what it should be like, common behavioral standards, values, goals and other issues about this community. This can also help to build a democratic community. Let students participate the process of decision making about what reading materials--supplementary materials for textbooks, literature book choices, independent reading books, etc. When students get to choose the books by themselves, they will not feel been forced and they will be active in reading.
Approach #3: Broaden the Range of Materials
CCSS emphasize multi-model texts. We should also expand the ranges of texts. Textbooks and required books should not be the only resources. Newspaper, journals, magazines, online materials and e-books should also be included.
Approach #4: Extend the Reading to Other Disciplines
Reading the texts in textbooks is very dry and lack of fun and isolated. But we can collaborate with other discipline teachers. For example, social studies and non-fiction reading is a good pair to help each other mutually with social studies providing historical background and non-fiction reading offering the skills and strategies for deeper understanding of social studies texts. We can also work on unit study on a specific theme to include more than one discipline teachers in our group. For example, in the unit learning of Air Pollution, we can work with biology, chemistry, ELA, and maybe other subject teachers to conduct a deep inquiry and research and to come up with some practical solutions.
Approach #5: Reach out Further
Our classroom is a small world for us teachers and students, but we should not lock ourselves in this small world. Instead, we should always reach out to get support and put our students in authentic environment to help them gain knowledge and skills through real experience. Communities and parents are important resources for us to get support and backup. Authors of the books we are reading can also be our resources. You can invite the authors to do an interview in person or do an distance interview with the aid of internet and technology. Get students to see, smell, and sense the world to help them get the sense of location and know their environment better is another option.
Approach #6: Spread the Spotlights
Give each students to present their products in group or in class. Let them read creatively and showcase their book report in a different way, for example, Video Book Talk, Book Trailer, Book-to-Stage, Book Advertisement, etc., to motivate and engage your students in reading and then let them spread their passion about reading to their peers to get more students motivated and engaged in reading.
Approach #7: Inquiry as Motive
Reading should not be done isolated. Neither should writing. Students learn to write through reading. Writing is a good way to convey students emotions, thoughts, and opinions to their families, friends, teachers, and peers, and it is also a good way to let students analyze and examine the outcome of their reading meta-cognitively. When students are working on inquiry projects, they can feel the real needs to read and research to find the answers to their questions and the real needs to write to synthesis their answers and the outcome of their inquiry.