A Passion for Independent Reading Lindsay Racine TEDxFortWayne

you see I'm lucky by becoming an English teacher I've been able to turn my favorite hobby into career am officially professional book nerd two years ago we rolled out independent reading and conferencing in all of our English language arts classrooms was immediately excited at the thought of being able to discuss books yes books with my students every day imagined that this would help create more lifelong readers and that my students would finally find their own passion for reading but as started pondering the reality of getting classroom full of social media enthusiasts to sit quietly and read well conferenced one-on-one with them at my desk started to panic started to imagine every worst-case scenario that could happen how was going to get these children that were used to acquiring stories from snapchat to sit and read novel for 15 to 20 minutes day and it was this fear that pushed me to start researching independent reading its benefits and to look to others who had been successful at it pushing my fear aside dove into the research and discovered that in 2015 only 35% of fourth graders were reading proficiently that means 65% of them were reading below grade level that's equivalent to everyone from the fourth row and back in this audience that statistic was alarming to me and knew that needed to find solution for my students so after reading article after article book after book came to one conclusion for students to be interested in reading they needed books but not just any books they needed wide variety of genres and large selection of them you know growing up read many different genres reading all of those Nancy Drew novels helped mold me into the detective that am today using her critical thinking skills communication and attention to detail was sadly able to convict my ex-boyfriend of cheating on me was also hooked on the baby-sitters club series you know started using skills read from those books not only when was babysitting teenager but as became parent can remember one time was trying to carry my baby his car seat diaper bag in my purse all out to the car for our weekly target trip now got everything loaded in the car got him strapped in the car seat pulled out of the driveway and heard but thanks to the baby-sitters club handled that like pro the second conclusion came to is that children don't know how to read books they know how to read just not books they're proficient in reading tweets and snapchat stories and Facebook statuses but not books in fact did you know that the average 10th grader today has an attention span of five minutes children need to be taught how to read and that starts with us adults we need to model proper reading strategies to our children by reading aloud to them we need to show our kids that reading is important and valuable to us when was baby my mother started reading to me in fact every night in my young childhood she would pull me on her lap and we would read one or two books before went to bed shel Silverstein's the giving tree and where the sidewalk ends became two of our favorite stories learned empathy and real-life lessons from those novels and believe that became the fluent reader that am today solely because of my mother taking so much time to read aloud to me and we've carried that relationship still today she still recommends books to me and vice versa in fact believe that our love for reading and the conversations that we've had around it has deepened our lifelong bond and have carried on the tradition of reading every night with my son in fact he has become such book fanatic that he wants new books weekly thanks to my obsession with Amazon Prime I've been able to feed that need but it's depleted in my wallet the third conclusion came to when was researching independent reading and conferencing is that children need to have meaningful conversations around what they read reading alone is not enough to boost vocabulary build knowledge develop empathy and increase motivation for children to gain the full benefit they must be able to talk about what they read remember when was senior in high school we had to read Beowulf and was really busy in high school so one night ran out of time to complete my required reading and walked into class the next day was very nervous because was not prepared and anybody that knows me knows love to talk and nothing was different back then in fact the only time ever got detention was because my teacher said if you wanted to talk in class to raise your hand so did but when he called on me spoke to my friend next to me I've never seen teachers face get so read so fast anyways back to Beowulf so was sitting in class nervous because hadn't done the reading and of course since my teacher knew how much loved to talk she called on me to give the class synopsis of the previous night's reading was panicking however thanks to my great vocabulary and wonderful skin reading skills was actually able to give that synopsis without anybody realizing that didn't do the reading it's so important to talk about books but it's so easy once you fall in love with them when was in high school reading saved my life now didn't come from poverty-stricken background or anything like that but had the normal girl drama that most teenagers have was also really busy played three sports was hockey cheerleader and worked part-time as lifeguard so definitely needed an escape from the reality of my life at times books saved me they took me to magical place and where could forget about my daily stresses and focus on fantasy world in which had no chance of failing did you know that student that reads for an average of 20 minutes day scores in the 90th percentile on standardized tests while child that reads for one minute day scores on average in the tenth percentile reading makes difference but don't believe need to convince you of why reading is important you probably already know that reading opens doors to communication by fostering new relationship with words it provides us with experiences and characters life's that we would never gain otherwise and in fact reading helps us all form our own personal identity but after all the research did in all the conclusions came to still was unsure of how was going to create the environment in my classroom that desired by convincing these social media expert teens that books were cooler than Netflix completed year of independent reading and it went pretty well we definitely had our successes but was not satisfied wanted perfection wanted to find way to get every single one of my students to fall in love with books the way that had so this school year was on mission to figure it out and while the research leads us to some factors that must be present for independent reading and conferencing to be successful was able to unlock the key to attainment this year and I'm actually willing to share it with you today in fact it's such simple concept that don't understand why it's not at the height of the research being published right now some of you may know who Jason Reynolds is he is the author of long way down and eight other books he never read book until he was 17 years old and on an interview on The Daily Show he states that this was because he could never find book that he could relate to being young hip african-american teen it wasn't cool to read books and as watched this interview my mind started churning if could find books that every one of my students could relate to would finally have my dream of invoking passion and every single student the answer is yes all it takes is spending time to find that one book that will spark child's interest even if it takes hundreds of tries all it takes is to find that one book that they can get lost in reading is like riding bike it may take many trials but once you fall in love with it you can't get enough maybe if more children got lost in books they would find themselves in real life and we wouldn't be having all these social problems that we are today also love poetry and when even say the word poem some of my students groan however after teaching them that Alicia Keys is prisoner of words and to pop was rose that grew from concrete they start to realize that not all poetry was written by an old guy named Shakespeare it all comes down to making the material relatable now going back to that interview on The Daily Show with Jason Reynolds he stated your life is dependent on your relationship with words and this rings so true to me mean words are everywhere we can't get away from them imagine walking into sushi restaurant and you can't read the menu you may have ordered baby fish eyes when all you wanted was tuna sashimi literacy affects community illiteracy leads to unemployment lower wages low self-esteem which can eventually lead the isolation the more intelligent people we have in our community the more businesses are started which create jobs culture diversity and it helps to connect people now that have unveiled my little secret to you hope that you use it and want you to share it because looking at how much literacy affects the community our relationship with books and how we share that with our children will either create or destroy our future my father was always very avid reader from as long as can remember he would read one or two books week and not only would he read these books but he would come home and we would sit on the porch and discuss what we had read that week while conversations between father and teenage daughter could have gotten awkward and far between they became learning lessons and deep connections want that for my students and want it for everyone we the people in this room can start to create change you out there have to be the ones to start sharing my secret with others you should take time to help every neighbor niece nephew grandchild and child to find that one book that they can relate to we can start to change the world and that starts with resurgence and reading and our youth here in Fort Wayne you