If you’re finding that your students are getting a little lethargic during independent reading, it’s time to change up the routine!

Here are 10 ways to help you do that.

1 – Read aloud. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may have noticed that this is my go-to strategy for just about anything! But it is a perfect way to get your kids excited about reading again. Start every single teaching session (or reading lesson) with a read-aloud, no matter how brief.

Here is a link to my updated post with some favorite beginning of year picture books and a link to my post with some favorite beginning of year chapter books. Even though I listed them as beginning-of-the-year books, they are great for any time of the year.

2 – Consider participating in #classroombookaday! Read this post with more information about that. This is a favorite activity in my classroom every year and I have kept it going, even when we were fully remote. This is another great way to incorporate read-aloud, except you use a daily picture book. Since some picture books are longer than others, we don’t always finish the book in one day. That’s okay — the idea is to just keep reading something aloud every day.

3 – Even though most of my students are back in the classroom, many of them have really embraced the whole online book reading experience while they were remote. I am encouraging them to continue reading books online if they want to and to share what they have found with the rest of the class.

Here are two great online resource options:

~Clare Landrigan’s online bookroom on Padlet

~Epic! digital book access

4 – Speaking of sharing – allow students to share what they are reading. It’s fun to have an informal sharing session once every week or two. Students can share something they have been reading and tell why they like it. Many times students get ideas for something to read next from something they hear a classmate share.

5 – Advertise the books in your classroom library. Share a bit from a book in a genre you would like to highlight and then offer the book to an interested student. If you have several students who are interested, you could draw names for the “winner.” This is another quick and easy activity you can do frequently.

6 – And speaking of advertising, try First Chapter Fridays! This is where you read the first chapter of a book to get students interested in reading more. If Friday isn’t a great day for you to do this, you can call it something like “Chapter One” day and do it any day of the week that works for you. Auction off the book in a similar way to how you advertise other books. Here is a link to my resource on Teachers Pay Teachers with several book titles that work well for this. Or you could just go through your own classroom library and choose books.

7 – Don’t “kill” the love of independent reading by making students write something or create something for every single book they read. If you want them to keep a record of books as a way to remember what they’ve read or as a way to validate how much they are reading, do that but don’t tie it to any kind of grade.

8 – Allow students to read whatever they want to read during independent reading. This is always a bit controversial for teachers since we believe it is our job to open up new titles and genres to our students. That is why I do book advertisements and First Chapter Fridays. But beyond that, I allow students to read or reread whatever they want to read. Make suggestions, encourage new titles, but then allow students to choose.(You can always introduce new genres and titles through guided reading or book clubs.)

9 – Allow students to listen to video read alouds from time to time. You can make your own videos for students to enjoy or try one of the resources below:
~Storyline Online
~Bookmarks Netflix Jr. series on YouTube
~Sankofa Read Aloud on YouTube
~Mrs. Lemansky’s Library

10 – I am all about simplifying. The best way I have found to simplify book discussions or writing about reading is to use the questions from the Book-Head-Heart framework. This framework was created and described by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst in their book Disrupting Thinking. They have a great new book out – Forged by Reading: The Power of a Literate Life – which takes the Book-Head-Heart framework a step further. Here is a picture of the Book-Head-Heart framework poster from my classroom.

The open-ended questions are my favorite part. It allows for students to share their own thinking rather than to try to get “right answers” from reading a book. This leads to rich discussions and seeing a text through a student’s eyes and understanding. I love it. Give it a try!

Changing up the routine from time to time is a good thing. Let me know if any of these ideas work for you!