There are a multitude of strategies useful for involving students while they read and for assisting teachers in evaluating the reading. "Choice in Reading," Chapter 2 from "What Choice Do I Have?" Reading, Writing, and Speaking Activities to Empower Students, is available online. The chapter outlines in detail two very useful strategies. One is a reading contract. The student chooses the book, but the teacher and an adult member of the student's family must agree with the choice; they are participants in the contract. The idea is to expand the student's horizons and also help the student learn to make appropriate choices―which ultimately makes for an eager reader.

The other strategy is a reading memo. This is a one-sheet (front and back) form that students fill out; it includes a summary of the reading, questions, drawings, and more. It requires students to complete a variety of tasks and assume various viewpoints that will engage them in what they are reading. To help students understand how to use the memo, it is important for the teacher to model the process―you can use a short story as the reading selection. The reading memo is flexible and can suit many needs, and it takes only fifteen to twenty minutes to do.

Also, in regard to choice, there has been a longstanding controversy among English language arts teachers―do we teach the favored, ever-present classics that ELA teachers love, or do we teach young adult literature, which seems to appeal more to the students themselves? For an excellent defense of YA literature leading to a call for a combination of both, see "YA FAQ (We're Glad You Asked)."

Finally, to make students want to read, it is imperative to market reading, to make reading fashionable. Sharon Draper, in "Making Reading a Cool Thing: Once Upon a Time," extends this idea creatively. She writes of marketing via the media, the home, and the school. All these areas must be involved in order to create many engaged readers in our classrooms, readers who are "mastery oriented, intrinsically motivated, and have self-efficacy."

Read-alouds. Use read-alouds to build background knowledge and model strategies. Often we think of reading aloud to a class as something that occurs only in elementary classrooms. Reverse those thoughts! There are numerous picture books, novels, poems, and short articles related to the content areas we teach that can be shared with students to build background knowledge and spark interest in the subject matter.

Two good resources for read-alouds are:

• "Fluency in the High School Classroom: One Teacher's Method." Marcia Punsalan explains why she considers reading aloud to be a gift that she gives to her students and also provides a list of creative read-aloud suggestions that range from special-interest news articles to top ten lists to riddles.
• "Model Reading Strategies to Improve Comprehension for All Students." Laura Robb shares how a ninth grade English teacher uses short novels to meet the needs of struggling readers and help students develop multiple perspectives in a pre-civil rights study. In addition, Robb includes an example of using short read-alouds to model strategies.

Before-reading strategy: Anticipation guide. To help students connect to prior knowledge before reading unfamiliar content, provide an anticipation guide. An anticipation guide is simply a list of statements, some true and some false, that the students read and discuss prior to reading. Students must access their background knowledge and make inferences in order to agree or disagree with each statement. During the reading, they look for evidence to support or challenge their prereading thoughts. Something so simple not only engages students in thinking before they read but focuses them on important content during reading. To see an example of an anticipation guide (as well as other activities that help students set purposes for reading, develop an interest in the topic, and activate background knowledge), view the AdLIT reading strategies "Setting a Purpose" and "Connecting to Prior Knowledge."

During-reading strategy: Paired reading and sharing. Paired reading and sharing has worked well for me when working with readers from the fourth grade to college students. I think it is effective because the discussion forces students to internalize and synthesize new material. In paired reading and sharing, the text is broken into short sections or paragraphs that become stopping points for discussion. Students are paired up and stop reading at the end of each section to discuss what they have read. You can give specific discussion starters such as "The most important fact is . . .," "A question I have is . . .," "A connection I made is . . ., or "Something I think may be on the test is . . ." Or you can just allow students to have a natural conversation. More ways to support readers during reading can be found in "Reading Strategies: Scaffolding Students' Interactions with Texts." This resource is extremely helpful because it not only explains several before-, during-, and after-reading strategies, but also allows you to print related charts and graphic organizers that you can use with your students.

After-reading strategies. Often we hear our students exclaim, "I'm done!" and close their book after reading. If we really want them to comprehend and internalize new information, we must help them think about the content beyond the pages of the text. Discussion is one of the most powerful ways to do this, and many of the before- and during-reading strategies invite natural discussion. For example, students always want to revisit the anticipation guide and talk about how their views changed as a result of the reading. "Determining Importance" presents several after-reading activities that engage the students in discussion to help them agree on the most important information from the reading. "Scaffolding Students' Interactions with Texts" shares additional after-reading activities and allows you to print materials to use with your students.

For Further Exploration

Bretz, Sarah, & Weiker, Erin. (2006, November). Student-tested suggestions for using textbooks more effectively. Adolescent Literacy In Perspective.

Buehl, Doug. (1998, April 3). Questioning the author. The Reading Room.

Kahle, Diane (2006, November). Getting to know your middle grades mathematics textbook. Adolescent Literacy In Perspective.

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. (n.d.). Before, during, and after. Reading/Thinking Activities. Learning Points Associates.

Null, Teresa. (2004, November/December). Make science reading fun and meaningful in middle school. Adolescent Literacy In Perspective.