TIPS-TO-IMPLEMENT-AN-EXTENSIVE-READING-PROGRAM-AT-SECONDARY-LEVEL

Research has shown that extensive reading is one of the best ways to increase competence in a strange language. For extensive reading to work students have to understand and enjoy the reading, and take to read in big amounts. If students have admission to books that are at their level, with topics that interest them, and teachers provide reading time in course (Sustained Silent Reading), students will read. In the long run, reading volition have a positive impact on their language skills and their self-confidence as language learners will rise.

The positive impact of reading at the secondary level was confirmed in a study we carried out for one bookish yr at the high school level (4 and 5 class) where 39 students read books of their interest for 15-20 minutes every other day in form, making a total of approximately 1350-1800 minutes of reading. The library used in this project independent a full of 47 books. The 39 students read a total of 238 books making an average of vi books per student. Results showed that, at the linguistic level, students improved their language performance showing significant gains between the pre and post cloze tests that were administered. Likewise, students reported enjoyment, interest, and understanding of the reading textile. And so, their comeback and enjoyment was real, and then was the success of this reading programme.

Since we really believe in the power of reading, we would similar to share some tips we institute useful in the setup and implementation of an extensive reading program. These are some tips that can help teachers to ready upwardly a successful extensive reading programme. They relate to how to put together the library, how to introduce the project to your students, how to implement the plan, and what to do after students take read the book.

Putting together the library

  1. Review the material available for your classroom library.

    i. Go to the publishers' webpages and browse textile.

    2. Request catalogues (it is easier to come across all available options).

  2. Survey your pupil's interests earlier buying the books:

    1.Survey your students well-nigh what books would interest them. Let them to browse selected catalog pages that include advisable readers and ask the students for their opinions nigh the books.

    2.Requite students a listing of popular movies or books representative of different genres to see what they like (due east.g. Harry Potter: drama and fantasy).

  3. Ordering books:

    i.In one case you lot have made your volume selections, buy only one re-create of each book. Once yous begin your extensive reading project, if students similar a particular volume, then you tin can order boosted copies.

    2.Go on track of your books by using a spreadsheet, such as Excel, with titles, levels of the book, publishers, cost and ISBN. This will help you for future ordering and you can add together comments about the popularity of each volume.

  4. Getting the books ready

    1.Comprehend them with clear contact paper so they are more durable.

    2.Mark them as school property.

    3.Place them by level (easy, intermediate, and advanced) using color-coded stickers. This method will brand it easier to organize them.

  5. Set the pace of reading for your students

    ane.To help with pacing, add a recommended number of pages to read each day to cease that book within a predetermined fourth dimension catamenia. To exercise this, divide the number of pages in the book by the number of days they accept to complete the reading.

    2. Every bit a general rule, students were given one week to read a volume with l pages or less, 2 weeks for 50-100 pages, and three weeks or more for a book with 100 or more than pages.

Introducing the project to the students

  1. Have a lesson on what all-encompassing reading is. During this lesson give students guidelines and reading strategies that can help them during the project. It is of import to differentiate extensive reading from the intensive reading that students are accustomed to in a foreign linguistic communication classroom. Accept a discussion in which they compare the style they read in their native linguistic communication versus the target language, and so emphasize that during this project they will be reading more than like how they read in their native linguistic communication.
  2. Prepare the expectation that they will not understand every word, and that is ok. They have to become more accepted to ambiguity and using context than they have been in the by.
  3. To organize the project, have each student make a binder with the reading log, book written report template, and grading rubric. Explain book choice questionnaire and how they volition select books. Explain the procedures and grading.
  4. Give students a pre-examination (cloze-test) that they can later compare with a mail service-test at the finish of the semester. This allows students to see a concrete case of how the reading has assisted in their linguistic communication conquering.

Implementing the projection

  1. Pupil book selection:

    1.Allow and encourage the students to selection any book that interests them.

    two.If they start reading it and it is also hard, allow them to render it and cull another one.

    3.If a book is at a detail student'south level, he or she should be able to read and understand the text without using a dictionary.

  2. Check-in/check-out day:

    1.Exchange books at the end of grade. This volition continue students from spending as well much class time deciding on which book they would like to select. You can besides let students to come before or afterward school if they would like more fourth dimension to make up one's mind on a volume.

    2.Devise a check-in/out process that works for you. Whatsoever your arrangement is, be strict about it and enforce it with your students. If bank check-in/out procedures are not followed information technology is piece of cake for books to get lost.

    3.A very helpful site for organizing your classroom library is https://classroom.booksource.com/ default.aspx. Here you lot tin can keep a tape of all of the books in your library and easily cheque them in and out to your students. It besides has a reporting characteristic that you tin use to aid with grading.

    4. Beneath is the check-in/out procedure used during our extensive reading project:

    a. Check out:
    I. All books were laid out on desks in the classroom and students were allowed to browse earlier deciding on a book they wanted to red.

    II. Once students selected a book, they completed the Book Selection Survey and gave this to the instructor, who would assign the book that student in Classroom Booksource. The teacher would then place the survey in the student'south folder.

    b. Cheque in:
    I. Students return the book to the teacher, who would mark the volume as returned from that student in Classroom Booksource.

    5. Having a check-in/out procedure is essential. Whether using an online resources such as Classroom Booksource, a basic spreadsheet, or fifty-fifty a paper/pencil system, your procedure allows your to know that students are following the correct bank check-out procedures and aids in grading and keeping track of your resource.

What to do after students take read the book

Students were required to turn in a very simple and full general report containing very bones information about the plot, characters and setting of the volume they read, together with a reading log showing their opinion about the book.

Grading:

  1. During our project, students were graded once every nine weeks using a basic rubric that evaluated the following for each book they read:
    a. Completion of the Reading Log

    b. Completion of the Volume Selection Survey

    c. Book Reports

    d. Number of books/pages read during the grading menstruum

  2. It should be noted that the students' grades should reflect students' effort. We did non desire to brand the reading task seem like a chore or homework assignment, but attaching a grade to the project adds validity and importance to the projection for the students.
The authors
Victoria Rodrigo is a professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at Georgia Land University in Atlanta where she teaches at undergraduate and graduate level. Her area of inquiry is receptive skills, reading and listening, as a means of enhancing language acquisition.

Jana Ferguson has taught Spanish at the high school level for 5 years. She was inspired to implement an extensive reading program in her classroom while completing her masters in Spanish Language and Literature at Georgia State Academy in Atlanta.