Reading Again

I re-read and revised this post that I originally wrote in January, 2018.  I feel that this issue is still pertinent!

Rereading, going back and reading something again is "something good readers do."  So it was a little unsettling to re- read an article in an (v71 no. 4) issue of the Reading Teacher magazine an article by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher explaining how common instructional practices make students less likely to go back and reread. 

These are some practices that I have been questioning after revisiting this article:
- Modeling retelling and encouraging students to retell by only looking at the pictures.
- Reading assessments (my school used DRA2) that require the student to "retell the story as completely as you can remember" with the book closed.
- Having most of our students exposure to books more complex text be only through the teacher reading to the class.  Very few books are available in multiple copies.

Some teachers address this issue by using online books for shared reading.  I also love that some resources available through the New York Public Library such as Tumblebooks and BookFlix include excellent books with unlimited access.  I particularly appreciate that Kate DiCamillo has made many of her novels available as Tumblebooks eBooks!  Although I recognize that purchasing unlimited use eBooks by school libraries would be a big help, I also know that very little literatuure is published in this format!  What is there is often prohibitavely expensive and or expires after 1 year.  

So what do you do in your school to encourage students to re-read books that you read to them in class?  Do you have class sets of books?  Do you use online reading services?  Or do you have another system that really works?