Children Reading

Children reading - how can teaching reading to children be most effective? What does research show about reading to children?

Teaching reading starts with understanding the importance of reading to children.

Students must develop a love for hearing stories before you can get students reading on their own.



Children reading books means providing real books, real practice, and giving support when necessary.

One of the issues with teaching reading is that very little time is spent on actual "reading" and listening to stories.

Much time is used teaching isolated skills, and while that is necessary, kids must be practicing those skills in real, authentic ways.


Real practice is done through teaching guided reading, reading aloud to children while developing metacognition, doing oral and choral reading with poetry, and providing enough time for independent reading practice.

They won't become meaningful readers if little time is developed to the actual art of reading.

How can you teach a love of reading?

By using best practices in teaching reading activities for children:

• Interactive read alouds
• Teaching reading strategies during guided reading lessons.

The Volume of Children Reading Books Directly Impacts Achievement

If a fifth grade student reads an average of 40 minutes per day, that is over 2,350,000 words per year they are being exposed to and that means that student will generally rank in the 90th percentile for achievement.

A student who reads less than 5 minutes per day is only exposed to around 51,000 words per year and will likely rank in the 10th percentile.

90 minutes per day is Richard L. Allington's recommendation in his book What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs (2nd Edition).

Get Children Reading Books
- for 90 Minutes?

Here is how I manage to get the maximum time of authentic reading in my classroom:

• Students read as soon as they come in the door (10 minutes)
• They read to self for at least 30 minutes per day
• They read with a buddy for at least 20 minutes per day
• They read at the listening center for 15 minutes per day
• We read poetry together for 15 minutes every day
• We do an interactive read aloud together every day (15-20 minutes)

We work on specific reading skills as well, intervene with students who have not reached fluency or comprehension benchmarks, and enrich students who are ready for the "big" bikes. This is done through a meaningful literacy block.

Getting children reading and making children love reading are a bit different though.

You, as the teacher, are responsible for helping your students become passionate readers.

How can you do that? By making teaching reading to children a passion that uses specific and exciting strategies.

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