The Importance of Reading: Why It’s Worth the Battle
You walk into a cozy classroom with soft light, fluffy cushions scattered around a robust classroom library, brightly colored posters advocating the importance of reading, a YouTube video of a crackling fireplace projected on the whiteboard, and 38 students smiling joyfully as they read well-thumbed copies of the latest Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners. Phones and Chromebooks are nowhere to be seen. The writing journal lying open on one student’s desk features a thoughtful analysis you’re not sure you could have written. You hear one student sigh, “I just love reading so much.”
Sounds just like your classroom, right? Ha. Ours either.
Walk into our classrooms, and while you might hear calming music and see the same posters highlighting the importance of reading, you’ll also see Steph walking laps while checking Chromebooks to make sure Sora is the only tab open, flipping phones face down on desks, and standing next to the student who just.won’t.stop.talking. One student’s book is upside down. Kate is sending a GoGuardian message asking a fifteen-year-old if, just maybe, they’d like to try reading something other than Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The contents of our bookshelves spill onto the floor after their weekly ransacking by students who forgot books. The three submitted reading logs feature only a few illegibly scrawled words.
We are firm believers in the importance of reading, but we frequently felt like failures when colleagues in department meetings shared about their amazing literature circles or trips to the library or idyllic reading periods. We’d like to think they might have been exaggerating, but hey, maybe they uncovered a secret we never landed on.
If you’re struggling to make independent reading work in your classroom, we’ve got you covered. We can’t claim to have created hundreds of avid readers, but we did, through lots of trial and error, find some practical strategies that have helped us show our students reading is important without completely losing our minds.
Why Independent Reading in the Classroom Is Not Easy
Contrary to what your colleagues (in real life or on Instagram) might make you think, we’re pretty sure convincing teenagers of the importance of reading is hard for a lot of us, for a wide variety of reasons.
Time. In the ELA classroom, we’re supposed to cover analysis of short stories, poems, novels, plays, and nonfiction; grow students’ vocabulary; develop writing, grammar, listening, and speaking skills; and often take care of a host of other school business. Can we really afford to devote class time to force-feed “pleasure reading” to our students?
Students who don’t read. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey, people between the ages of 15 and 44 read for an average of less than 10 minutes per day. Our students would pretty much rather do anything else. And if they have to read, they’d rather just re-read the one book they know they like. Independent reading time becomes a battle of wills between us and our students. How does one run a meaningful literary circle when only one person has done any reading?
Access to books. Making sure all students have something to read requires preparation. We have to book time in the school library, build classroom libraries large enough to accommodate close to 200 students (usually with our own money), or allow students to use devices (hello, distraction!).
YA trends shift quickly. Students are most likely to be interested in books if they’re trendy, but trends move fast, and staying on top of them requires time and effort (and money) we don’t have.
Difficulty of holding students accountable. When we devote significant class time to reading, we want to hold students accountable for it, but it’s challenging to create an assignment that doesn’t suck all the fun out of reading, become an exercise in copying random sentences from page 37, or require you to somehow have familiarity with all the books students are reading.
With all of these challenges, it’s no surprise that independent reading can become a headache. “Why bother?” we ask? Is it really worth the time and effort?
The Importance of Reading Despite the Challenges
Tempting as it is to give up on independent reading or phone it in, we still believe there are too many reasons to keep trying:
Reading promotes academic success. The best way for students to develop the base of knowledge and critical thinking skills they need to be successful in any class that requires reading and writing is to read. Multiplestudies link students’ reading habits and proficiency to their academic performance in a variety of subjects.
Reading builds endurance. Our students have the attention span of gnats (adults, too, but that’s another matter). Yet life requires us to focus for extended periods of time, often on things we may not find particularly interesting. Reading for extended periods of time helps students develop endurance, and if they’re not reading at home, our classrooms may provide the only opportunity for some of them to develop this skill.
Reading is a screen-free way to unwind. In an age when mental health is at the top of everyone’s minds, we want to teach our students ways to rest that don’t involve zoning out for hours of scrolling in front of a screen. Reading is a great way to do this, and instilling the value of this in our students will pay dividends throughout their lives.
Reading builds empathy and helps us understand important issues. Our country, our world is angrier and more divided than ever. When we read, we are forced to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and see things from their perspective, a skill our students need. Our students need to see people whose lives are different from their own, and they need both facts and experiences (even vicarious ones) to formulate and articulate informed opinions about important issues.
Reading helps students feel seen. Our students struggle with all kinds of things, from the small inconveniences of growing up to not feeling understood (in their families, friend groups, or society at large) to real trauma. For some students, seeing themselves or their life circumstances on the page can be a lifeline that helps them to feel less alone or makes it easier for them to understand what they are going through.
Using Independent Reading to Reinforce the Importance of Diversity in the Classroom
If we truly want our students to develop empathy, understand important issues, and feel seen, we must pay special attention to the voices and experiences we include in our classroom libraries. Over the years, we’ve realized the importance of keeping a few things in mind.
Challenge yourself to read widely. We do our best to read adult and young adult books from a wide variety of genres, cultures, and Lexile levels. You may love romance or mysteries, but what if your students are more drawn to nonfiction or fantasy? You may love keeping up with YA trends, but what if your students are reading below grade level? You may gravitate toward books that represent your own culture, but your students need you to point them toward engaging reads from diverse voices they may not encounter on BookTok (should they even come across this resource in the first place).
Look especially for representation of your students. What demographics are most relevant to your classroom? Try to especially highlight books that will allow your students to see themselves on the page. Of course, it’s important for them to see other perspectives, but it’s important for them to see themselves as well.
Pay attention to authors. One thing we’ve really had our eyes opened to in the last few years is the importance of underrepresented minorities telling their own stories. Many novels touted as “diversity reads” are written by white authors (and, while we cringe that we’ve recommended some of them, we also believe “know better, do better”). When seeking to represent another culture in your classroom, do your best to include books written by members of that culture.
Look for books that challenge stereotypes. We recently listened to a podcast about incorporating Arab narratives into classrooms, and the guests shared their frustration with The Kite Runner serving as the predominant representative of their culture in many literature classes. Not only does Hosseini not represent all Arab cultures, but many Muslims find the portrayals of their religion in the novel to be based on stereotypes that perpetuate misunderstandings about their culture and religion. This is not something we’re going to get better at all at once, and we’re going to make mistakes, but the more we push ourselves to learn, the better experience we are going to provide for all our students.
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Devote one day of class time to reading. This is a big investment (20% of your class time), but we think it’s worth it. Not only does it take students a while to get settled, but if we want to help them increase their reading stamina, we need to provide them with opportunities to read for extended periods of time. Do your best to hold these days sacred so your students understand reading is important to you.
Create a reading-friendly environment. Full bookshelves, posters that promote reading, and quiet focus music playing on reading days go a long way to showing you value reading. And read yourself! It’s stress relief for you, and it models for your students that the rewards of reading are worth setting aside your to-do list.
Let students read what they enjoy. For many years, we required students to read books that were grade-level appropriate or, in AP Literature, from a recommended reading list. But when we really rethought the goal of our independent reading efforts, we realized it was more important they read something they enjoy. While we still encouraged them to break out of their comfort zones from time to time, we didn’t require it, and as a result, our students’ engagement with their reading increased.
Don’t ban technology. We really wanted to tell students to put all their devices away. But our school district gave students free access to Sora, and we realized it was an important resource for ensuring they all had access to books. Allowing devices required more monitoring on our part, but more students actually read on reading days.
Promote audiobooks. While we did require students to read printed books on reading days, we played audio recordings of our class texts and used audio samples for First Chapter Fridays. Many of the benefits of reading are still available to students who listen to books, and removing barriers that keep them from reading is always a good thing. We would encourage you to not have a blanket policy against audiobooks. For some students this is the closest they’re going to get to picking up a book.
Adopt a simple Reading Check-In form. Reading logs did not work for us (not that this stopped us from using them for years), and we had more success when we developed an informal “check-in” assignment students completed once each grading period. We encouraged students to share their reading experience with us, and we replied back with our own comments, questions, and suggestions. For more information on how we set up the system, check out our YouTube video on the topic.
If you’re looking for a more substantial reading project but still want to keep it simple, we developed a flip book activity for AP Literature students to complete after reading assigned novels, and it could easily be used for independent reading.
You don’t have to be a reading guru or a literature circle expert to promote the importance of reading in your classroom. Despite the challenges it poses, there are simple ways we can encourage our students to read that provide them rich benefits and make our communities more diverse and welcoming places.
Save time while still creating a reading culture in your classroom by subscribing to our First Chapter Friday Nearpods. Every month, we send out five free Nearpods to subscribers introducing a range of high-interest titles we’ve already vetted for you. Each Nearpod includes a book trailer, a 4–5 minute sample of the first chapter, and a 3-question easy quiz to hold students accountable for participating.
Speaking of saving time, it’s hard to keep up with the trends while you’re also doing all.the.things for your students, so let us help! The YA Books section on our website features weekly round-ups of a wide variety of YA titles we think your students will love.
