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Developing Reading for Pleasure: engaging young readers
Developing Reading for Pleasure: engaging young readers

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5 Supporting reading time

Reading time has multiple titles: Everybody reading in class (ERIC), Uninterrupted silent sustained reading time (USSR), Sustained quiet uninterrupted individual reading time (SQUIRT) and Drop everything and read (DEAR). Whatever you call it, it is misleading to suggest that it is ever fully independent as ongoing support is needed to help children make informed choices, engage as readers, develop their stamina and perseverance, and participate in related informal conversations. Reading time, like all the RfP pedagogies needs to be Learner-led, Informal, Social and with Texts that Tempt (LIST).

A schoolgirl at a table reading a book.

Learner-led reading time

Learner-led reading time will develop by giving children options. This might include the chance to choose:

  • what to read (online or in print)
  • where to sit
  • who to sit alongside
  • to talk about what they’re reading
  • to remain silent and read alone
  • to swap their book or magazine for another
  • to seek teacher support for making a new choice
  • to read to or with others
  • to engage in book related play.

Informal reading time

Children who don’t choose to read at home may not associate reading with relaxing, and a few cushions in the book corner will not solve this. Allow children choices and keep the tenor relaxed. Teacher participation – perhaps through discussing a book with small groups, reading themselves, offering a model of an adult engaged reader and supporting children’s choices – is also important. Occasional stories and hot chocolate time, creating dens complete with torches and blankets, and moving reading opportunities outdoors can also help as they make reading time special and overtly shared.

Social reading time

Conversations about what children are reading can be included at the start or end of a more silent reading session and may also develop spontaneously during it. In the earlier years, children may choose to retell a story, alone or with others, by acting it out, using soft toys, turning the pages and re-voicing the narrative. They may even be invited to use specific reading strategies, but too overt a focus on strategies can constrain children’s engagement and divert the purpose of the activity to skill development rather than nurturing choice-led reading.

Texts that tempt

Children need help to develop and exercise their discrimination as readers and find books that satisfy, surprise and sometimes stretch them. Friends’ recommendations help and teachers’ knowledge of children’s texts and of individual learners, as was argued in Session 4, is also critical. Children’s choice of texts that tempt them as readers is key, as the video in Activity 4 demonstrates.

Activity 3 The pedagogy checkLIST in action during reading time

Timing: Allow approximately 15 minutes for this activity

Watch this video of Becky Thomson and her class of 10-11-year-olds during enriched reading time.

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Transcript: Video 2

BECKY THOMSON:
Independent reading is good for a variety of things I think. Firstly, it’s a great opportunity for the children to practise their reading and to have a chance to have a go at it on their own, but I think also it’s that time where children can take real ownership of their reading. So that might be that they want to sit and read a poem, it might be that they want to sit and read a magazine, it might be a chance to get really into that novel that they’re enjoying, but I think the thing that’s important about it is that it’s their time for them as readers. And it’s that time where they can develop as readers themselves. So they get to know what they like, what they don’t like because they’ve got that time to explore that.
In the Teachers as reader’s research, it talks about volition and choice being key. And I think that’s really true for my class. It’s important that they choose where they sit and read. It’s important they choose who they read with and what they’re reading, which will mean that on some days, they might, I had it today, two boys sat and chose to read a sort of what would be probably regarded as a more of an early years level book, where it’s sort of mixing and matching different animals. On another day they would sit and choose to read their novels. And I think it’s about them having choice as readers. So that the children own the time it’s not me saying, "Read this, sit here, do that." Because otherwise they’re not going to apply that hopefully outside of school and beyond when they’re in my classroom, and they move on to secondary school.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

The pattern of things and how things work in our independent reading time varies. And again because there’s such an element of choice, it really depends on what the children want to do that day. So sometimes children will sit independently in silence and read their books, because that’s what they want to do. On other days they might choose to read a comic together, on other days they might choose to sit and read a joke book and tell jokes to each other. On another day they might choose to sit in the book corner and read picture book aloud to each other, or read parts of their novel aloud to each other. It depends really on what the children want to do, but I think it’s about having a variety of choices available so that the children then have that ownership of the time.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

CHILD 1:
[Reading from book] We’ll be happy. Yes, but we’ve had another idea, sorry she said, we didn’t bring our hearts with us today.
BECKY THOMSON:
So the role of book blether and book talk, I think is really important in this independent reading time. Because that’s what I do myself as a reader. If I’ve been reading something, I want to talk about it and I want to share things with other people. So I think it would be wrong really to deny them that right.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

CHILD 2:
Now this one’s got three. 1, 2, 3.
BECKY THOMSON:
So there’s a lot of informal book talk during our independent reading time where the children might talk about their books, or you should read this one because, or have you got to this bit yet?
CHILD 3:
She’s very shy.
BECKY THOMSON:
You think she’s really shy? Why do you think it is, Ahad?
CHILD 4:
Because Jack is with that girl, that’s why.
BECKY THOMSON:
So you think maybe she’s a bit jealous?
CHILD 4:
Yeah.
BECKY THOMSON:
Because Jack’s with playing with Lily? And then maybe she’s feeling a bit left out?
CHILD 4:
Yeah
CHILD 3:
She’s on that book to see she’s the one that started all these adventure.
CHILD 5:
Miss, sshhh, spoilers.
BECKY THOMSON:
Sorry Aida, don’t want to spoil it.
I try and make a conscious effort to have that informal book talk as a class. So would you recommend what you’ve been reading? Has anybody read anything they want to share with us? Do you want to read a bit of it aloud? Just to sort of get them used to talking about their books in an informal way that’s not being assessed by me, it’s just that that’s what real readers do.
End transcript: Video 2
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Video 2
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Now you have watched the video, reflect on the following questions.

  1. What kinds of activity did the children participate in during this time?
  2. What range of text choices were evident?
  3. How engaged were the children?
  4. What opportunities for motivated engagement and talk developed?
  5. What was Becky’s role prior to and during this time?

Comment

In Video 2, Becky offers a range of activities to nurture the children’s engagement. Teachers do not need to insist on silence, although setting some time aside or a space in the room for relatively quiet, sustained reading is invaluable.

Children can only make choices from what is available. So, classroom collections, the teacher’s mini-library and the school library all need attention to ensure breadth. In the early years, a core set of texts enriched by others offers support.

In the video, Becky joins a group to facilitate children’s informal book talk, and their engagement and motivation, but does not dominate. The noticing teacher will be aware of off-task talk and those children who do not settle to read and will offer additional focused support.

The teacher’s role involves ensuring their pedagogy is LIST, modelling their commitment and pleasure in reading, sharing their repertoire and establishing a supportive classroom environment in which relaxed book blether emerges naturally. You can learn more about this in the next section.

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Optional resource

For more ideas and strategies to refine and shape reading time for RfP [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] visit The Open University’s Reading for Pleasure website.