Every Tuesday after school I get out a reading selection and a small group of students comes over to read together. We take turns reading aloud, and try to explain to each other what we understand from the text, and there’s always some points of discussion afterward. We have a couple of regulars, but the others just happen to be in the room, or have time that afternoon. This year, I’ve been making selections in accordance with the “monthly themes” that we chose, which has really helped broaden the kinds of texts that we use. We’ve read student essays, excerpts from novels, graphic novels, and newspaper articles.
The small group atmosphere has allowed even those students who tell me they “hate reading” to say afterwards “that was a good story”. We have students in the lowest level ESOL classes reading the New York Times, and working through it, despite the difficulty. Not only does reading club give students moments to enjoy reading, but reading becomes a social activity, and serves as the seed of discussion between students who have usually been from different social groups and ESOL levels. We had a prolonged passionate discussion about school reform during “education” month, and probably the most challenging topic for students during “family” month was an article by a woman who had placed her mother in a nursing home.
Reading for school is one thing, but I try to get students to read as adults read, for pleasure, without worrying too much about every detail, and talking about it with others.
