Children Reading: Make Them Love It!
One question first: Do your students really spend enough time actually reading? Probably not. 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: an interactive read aloud and teaching reading strategies during guided reading lessons, and using reading comprehension strategies. The Volume of Children Reading Books Directly Impacts AchievementIf 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. On the other hand, 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.Your instruction may be excellent, but if your students are not reading - a lot - your excellent teaching will not show many gains in their achievement levels. That is why this page is focused on one simple topic: Get your students reading and read a lot to them, because there are so many benefits of reading to children.. 
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)  . It is hard to find that time during the day. I don't always achieve it, I must admit. However, I do get it in most of the time. How? By incorporating meaningful and structured reading activities for children. Yes, I work on specific reading skills too, intervene with those students who have not reached fluency benchmarks, and enrich students who are ready for the "big" bikes. I do this through a meaningful literacy block. Click here to read the letter I send to parents explaining about reading time at school.
Make Teaching Children Reading PleasurableWe all repeat activities that bring us pleasure. When we enjoy something, we are bound to try harder, do it more often and keep coming back to it even if we mess up a bit. That is basic human nature. Teachers need to make reading a pleasurable activity. If you want your children reading and growing, then make it an enjoyable experience. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2000 national reading assessment of fourth-grade students found that reading for fun had a positive relationship to performance on the NAEP reading scores. 87% of students who reported reading for fun on their own time once a month or more performed at the proficient level, while students who never or hardly ever read for fun performed at the Basic level. Turn on the closed captioning on the "education shows" we all like so much on a Friday afternoon. That way they end up reading the words on the television as they are watching the show. Sneaky, but effective (credit to Jim Trelease from The Read-Aloud Handbook: Sixth Edition
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). I do it to my own kids at home. I don't know if they necessarily love reading because of it, but their fluency and vocabulary has sure improved!
