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HS SSR LM_NET responses January 2007 Thank you to everyone who responded. Here is a hit of the responses that I received. By the way, I have administrative support from my principal and my current plan for the rest of this school year is to see if English faculty might be able to include an SSR a couple of times per week in their classes. Next year, I hope to add an SSR time(s) into the HS (and MS) schedule for reading just books. Kathryn Turner Librarian AIGS Guangzhou, China kturner@aisgz.edu.cn *** What we did to get it to work, was to have the first 10 minutes of a class period daily, but switch it around so that it wasn't always one class that took the hit. ~ For example: Monday-1st hour Tuesday-2nd hour Wednesday-3rd hour Thursday-4th hour Friday-5th hour Monday-6th hour etc. ~ They were always expected to have a "library book" with them. *** We also have students (11-12 grade) who don’t have much time for free reading so we added a class to our curriculum this year called Reading for Personal Pleasure. ~It is a one semester class where the students get the hour to read books of their choice.~ We use journaling and class discussions to grade the students.~ When we proposed the class, we were hoping to have enough students for one class (20-30), but we ended up with over 100 students signing up for it and we are offering 3-4 classes.~ My circulation has increased and the students love it. *** I am your success story. I, too, was not sure what the staffwould say about it but when I presented the idea to them, I told them that it would NOT work unless they modeled the reading. We are currently on a four block schedule and each block is 90 minutes long. We refer to blocks as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc. Some of our blocks are divided, hence the A/B identifiers. We read 15 minutes on Mondays and Wednesdays. I create aschedule that is placed on a calendar and handed out to staff and students and in daily announcements. Monday would be 1A, Wednesday 2A, following Monday 3A and Wednesday 4A. Then the third week is Monday 1B, Wednesday 2B,etc. When it is "A" time, the 15 minutes for DEAR time is at the beginning of class. "B" time is taken from the last 15 minutes of class. That way, the reading is not in the middle of instruction and all classes share the"burden" or preempted instruction time. This is our third year and circulation in high school fiction is way up. I had a 7th grade boy, just this morning, who has never been a reader asking for the sequel to Haddix's Among the Hidden. Delighted I was!!! Our reading scores are great and I know that students continued use of reading material is a plus. Besides, we are making lifelong readers for a number of kids. They hate to have their DEAR time interrupted (Drop Everything And Read). I do insist that everyone, teachers too, read BOOKS. That's right, BOOKS. Magazines and newspapers do not create the sustained reader like a book does. Themes and literary devices are much more sustained in a book environment. Good luck! You will need books for your adults in building, too. *** A few years ago our whole school participated in the Heifer Project, which entailed 5 minutes of free reading at the beginning and end of classes. I teach a research paper course to 10th graders, and I modified the instructions to include 7 minutes of free reading at the beginning of each class, and have continued the practice in subsequent years. The real readers loved it because they had an excuse for recreational reading which tends to get squeezed out with all the work they have to do. A couple of girls who had never checked anything out got hooked on some easy readers and have gone on to more sophisticated choices. I am trying to get this spread to our 9th and 10th grade study halls, perhaps next year. *** We have been working on increasing reading scores in our high school for the last two years. With that in mind, we instituted SSR last year, and continue it this year. We have a 20 minute period daily built into our school day for SSR. Most weeks it is used for reading on a daily basis. Some weeks 1 or 2 of the days are used for Homeroom, or another activity, but our students read for a minimum of 3 days a week. What we have experienced: as a media specialist, circulation of fiction increases, our reading scores are better,and our students seem to enjoy the break in the day. *** I can't really offer a success story yet, but I hope to later. Our school has instituted a reading period just this semester. It is only 25 minutes once a week, but it is a start. Reception has been generally good, as has compliance. Please post a hit of your findings, as I will be looking to provide additional support to possibly expand the program in the spring. *** WE tried a number of years ago to do SSR during our tutorial period. It flopped. Teachers simply didn't buy in to the program (in my opinion). They complained, didn't enforce the reading, read their email, did lesson plans, talked on the phone, then complained that the students didn't read. The ones I felt who had a legitimate complaint said that trying to enforce reading with kids you didn't have in regular class just didn't work. However, last year one of the English teachers began SSR with her English classes, 15 minutes beginning of the period. If it was a week that the class met three times, she only would do it twice (we are on a A/B block schedule). Teacher and students loved it. This year a second English teacher is also doing SSR and loving it. [A] second teacher does require students to create a list of vocabulary words from their reading, other wise it is free reading. The teacher shares her vocabulary list from her reading. In both cases, the teachers reads along with the students. *** Our school division has a Literacy for Life campaign going on. The high schools are involved in this and so do have Reading Days. Each collegiate does this according to what works best but I have not heard any complaints about any one choice. At my school we have a designated day in almost every month that is Just Read Day. Students and teachers must read for the first 15 minutes of each period- it works well. In fact, some of the staff is surprised at how well it works. I put reminders in the notices in the days leading up to this to remind students to have a book with them so that we don't have the panic before first period. One time I had book titles on posters in the halls and found that many students read this and came in asking for those books. Good luck! It's worth the effort! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. 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