Beginning next week, a teacher in Hayward will launch a Kindle reading intervention for the eight lowest-performing readers in the 10th grade. The cohort will meet for an hour once a week, focus on the personal and cognitive domains of the Reading for Understanding framework, and read a lot on Kindles.
The six boys and two girls, on average, read at a third or fourth grade level. Most reading specialists and researchers would argue that the students need an intensive, one-on-one program to accelerate their reading growth.
That is likely possible, but the teacher and I are exploring another possibility. What will happen if we build a strong community of readers, where there is support rather than stigma? And what if we use Kindles to encourage voluminous reading?
There’s no guarantee that this will work. But it did last year with a similar group, when students gained more than a grade level in their reading in less than two months.
The intervention will run until June, at which point the teacher and I will analyze the data and see how the students did. In addition to reading scores, we’ll look at some other metrics to determine the success of the program.
I can’t wait to see what happens!
I’m excited to hear how it turns out!
Me too! There are very few examples of book clubs at the high school level, particularly involving students who say they don’t like reading. I plan on taking a few pictures and getting a few quotations!