Reading Centers for Improving Reading Skills

Reading Centers: What areas do you need to work on?

1. Reading with Passion and Choosing the Right Books

• Practical Strategies:
• Get inspired by other students’ blog posts. Talk to other students about books they are reading.
• Look at sample courses of study.
• Go online and research authors you like.
• Read book reviews on-line. See links on my blog under Reading Recommendations (left side). Additional links:
• http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/when-holden-met-katniss-the-40-best-ya-novels-20140522/meg-rosoff-how-i-live-now-19691231
  
  http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-ever-teen-novels
• 
  
• Go to school or public library and look at recommendations.
• Shop around on amazon.com; go to my wishlist – there is a link on my blog.
• Go to a book store and ask for young adult section.
• Read a book that has been turned into a movie.
• Read another banned book.
• Are the books you are reading too difficult? Try the following authors: S. E. Hinton, Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon Draper, Walter Dean Myers, John Green. Also, refer to sample courses of study.
• Ready for more challenging texts? Read great classics! See the sections Classics and Awesome Adult Fiction in my library.

• Task/Application:
• In your notebook, write 2-3 strategies you will use.
• Go back to your course of study in your notebook and add to it, or write a new one; list at least 5 book you want to read.

2. Annotating

• Practical strategies:
• Start by tagging important parts as you read using a post or writing the page number in your notebook; at the end of a chapter, go back and add a sentence for each part you tagged.
• Read one day; the next day, reread and take notes.
• Choose a focus to follow and take notes on: character feelings, connections, a critical thinking question.
• When to stop and take notes:
• Find the most exciting and/or emotional part of the text. Write a note about why you found it so exciting.
• Find a part that you have a strong reaction to. Write a note about what your reaction was and why.
• Find a part where a character or you learn a valuable lesson. What is the lesson?
• Task/Application:
• Go back to the book you are reading. Add at least 5 notes using these strategies.

3. Synthesis page support

• Choose a focus that you feel strongly about; refer to notes and list of critical thinking questions for ideas
• Use colorful markers and images.
• Look at student samples.
• Follow the checklist.
• Task/Application:
• Redo one of your synthesis pages or create a new one.

4. Super Readers Research to Deepen Thinking

Super readers flex lots of different muscles. One of these muscles is research. Research can strengthen readers’ understanding of a text but also allow them to flex and show off those muscles just for fun.

Exercises for your research muscles:

• Dictionary Dips: Look up unfamiliar words and names of people and/or places to find out their meaning
• Biography Squats: Read about the author’s life (in a biography, obituary, interview, or article)
• Author Isolations: Read other work by the author (primary sources such as essays, prose, poetry, diaries, journals, letters)
• Commentary Cheers: Read commentary/reviews and criticism on the book
• Freestyle Cool Down: Go with the flow and let research take you on an interesting journey of discovering cool and interesting facts, photos, links, stories, etc.
• (NEW!) Background Curls: Learn about the historical, cultural, and/or societal background of the setting/time period in which the book takes place or was written. For instance, if you are reading Maus by Art Spiegelman, read about the Holocaust.
• (NEW!) Allusion Hunt: Writers often allude to or mention real songs, titles of movies or books, artists, politicians, musicians, other important people, etc. Sometimes these allusions are directly or indirectly mentioned. Try to pick up on them and look them up. It's kind of like doing a treasure hunt. Hidden among all these sentences, you can discover some really cool things! For instance, in Freak the Mighty, there are many allusions to King Arthur; this can lead you to read the original stories about this character.

General tips:

• Choose your sources carefully. Use reputable, trustworthy ones. Wikipedia is a good starting place but it is not serious research. It’s amateurish. However, the links can guide you to serious sources.
• Make use of external links, works cited/references, indexes, appendices, search engines, etc. to help you find related sources.
• Go to the library. Ask librarians for help.
• When writing with sources, be sure to cite them! Otherwise, you will get sucked into the dark side of plagiarism.
• Use research to make all of your writing, whether they be reading responses, blog posts, essays, stories, etc. more interesting and precise.
• Include outside resources in your reading responses, synthesis pages, and blog posts.