From: Karen Saarinen <ksaarinen>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:18:38 -0500

As a middle school librarian I feel that my most important responsibility and challenge is to provide access to materials of high interest to my students. We know that students will not read in their free time unless they find material that they enjoy reading. And, when they read in their free time, their reading and writing, recognition of correct English language, and knowledge base all improve. They really can't do well in most of their school subjects if they can't read well. So, of course, I am intensely interested in reading motivation!
        My Masters Degree paper was about the reasons some middle school students choose not to read. There are a number of reasons. Some I can do something about, others I can't. Reading motivation is the area in which I do have influence.
        I can match them up with books that I think they will like through booktalks, lists, and one-on-one recommendations. I can encourage teachers to give students a chance to share their book recommendations with their peers ...this is highly effective and can be done in several ways! I can have materials of a wide span of reading levels and interests available. I can have a bin of "Super Reads" that are almost no?il favorites. I can donate bookfair books to classrooms so that favorite books are convenient to the readers. I can encourage parents to bring home books from the public library that they think their child will enjoy; yes, even at middle school age this works. I can also encourage parents to place a lamp next to their child's bed and encourage reading before sleep each night. I can encourage reading of all kinds of materials: books, magazines, comic books, newspapers, picture books, manuals, and cereal boxes. And I can reduce the pressure of returning books on time and paying a fine for replacment of books lost, for some students don't check out books because they fear this experience.
        I can't bring them back to the time that they were preschoolers and provide the missing read aloud experiences that instill in them a love of reading. I can't change some parents into models of people who love reading. I can't take the TV's out of the students' bedrooms. Etc.
        As for AR and other reading incentive programs, I feel that they may help kids find books appropriate for their reading level, which can be a frustrating activity for some kids. The students may even read enough great books during the program that they discover a love of reading! Some may. Others will fail as they do in so many of our school programs. I'm not impressed at all with the type of test they must complete to get credit for reading. What is that all about????? By the time they reach middle school, after several years of AR, almost NO students ask me if we have AR in our school.
        Many middle schools no longer have a Reading class for their students. They have Language Arts, which often is much more English instruction than reading incentive. Our school maintains a Reading class period for each student every day. This provides opportunities for reading aloud, silent reading, reading motivation activites, and frequent visits to the library. These Reading teachers also become familiar with teen literature and help me in matching kids with books!

Karen Saarinen Library Media Specialist Ashland Middle School Ashland, Wisconsin
Received on Thu 14 Oct 2004 09:18:38 AM CDT