Why use sustained silent reading

Journals provide good handwriting practice too; since teachers will be reading and responding to journal entries, students know they must write legibly! And SSR and journals together show students that reading and writing are part of everyday life, supporters add. Whatever the case, whether SSR is a private time activity or a discussion or writing motivator, most experts agree that one thing is essential to its success.

It is crucial that teachers participate in the process as role models. SSR time is not a time for teachers to correct papers or plan the next day's lessons. Teachers should be right there on the floor or in another comfortable spot -- modeling a lifelong love of reading. If students are expected to fill out a reading log after reading, teachers should do the same. If a weekly "share time" is part of the SSR routine, the teacher can serve as a model by talking about the book he or she is reading.

Teachers can model the thought processes that accompany reading by talking about how the main character changes through the course of the book, about the author's use of language, and about surprises and disappointments they encounter as they read. As much as students need to learn to be good independent readers, they also need to learn how to respond to books and how to share their feelings about books with others. Modeling prepares students to carry on good book conversations. It enables students to carry on good independent book talks when they come together in pairs or small groups for that purpose.

If teachers ask students to write about their SSR activities in a dialogue journal, those journals can provide an opportunity to model writing skills. Few teachers correct journals; most use journals as private, uncorrected communication. They use the journals as an opportunity to learn more about their students and as an informal measure of growth.

In dialogue journals, teachers can model by spelling words correctly in their responses to students that the students had misspelled in their entries. Teachers might even ask a question that requires a response that will include the misspelled word -- a tricky way to see if modeling really works! Modeling can also be used to point out students' errors of usage and capitalization and grammar.

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Search form Search. Sustained silent reading can serve many purposes: Most school reading is assigned reading. SSR offers students an opportunity to read material of their own choice. During SSR time, many students learn that they can use their word attack skills to figure out new words -- on their own!

SSR can build students' confidence in their abilities to work through reading trouble spots. Many studies of whole-class groups and of select groups of unmotivated readers show that SSR can result in students wanting to reading more. The amount of time that students spend reading independently outside of school often increases as a result of SSR, parents report.

Often children ask for books to read at home. SSR can be one more element in a reading program aimed at demonstrating the joy that reading can bring and developing lifelong readers and learners.

In the five-finger test, students are asked to select a page from the book to read to themselves. They hold up all five fingers on one hand as they begin to read. Each time the student encounters a word that is hard to read, her or she puts down one finger. If all five fingers are in the down position before a student finishes reading the page, the book is probably too difficult. The student probably should put the book back on the shelf and look for one that won't be so hard.

If the teacher models, the students will follow! For some teachers, SSR is a time to model good writing habits too. Trending Report Card Comments It's report card time and you face the prospect of writing constructive, insightful, and original comments on a couple dozen report cards or more. Here are positive report card comments for you to use and adapt!

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It's sustained in that it's not whenever you decide you can take those ten or fifteen minutes from your class time. It happens every day throughout the whole year. What if I just take those ten minutes from Monday through Friday, and then we just read for fifty minutes on Friday instead? Five times ten does not equal fifty in SSR. It's just like when I coached cross country for a while, and it would be the same thing.

It would be like saying, "Instead of running two miles each day, we'll just run ten miles on Friday. Having students choose their own books is a huge part of SSR. They have the ability to say, "I don't like this book. I'm going to stop. Then, of course, I think a huge part of a program like this is allowing students to talk about the books they selected. I used book talks with students, and they were allowed to speak about their own book and comment on how much they liked it or disliked it and what they thought about the characters.

In your teaching practice, how did you first become aware of the importance of SSR? How did you identify this as something to be nurtured? My first year of teaching, I was given five sections of a class called Basic Communications. They were the students who had failed every other English class. This was their only chance of getting English credit and eventually, of course, graduating.

They were not students who were interested in English. They were not students who wanted to read and write. We had little packets. There were workbooks and things, and it was not a very stimulating curriculum for the class. I thought, "There's got to be something better here. She explained to me what it was, and I thought, "At this point, I'll try anything. The transformation was instant. These were kids who didn't want to read, didn't want to be in my class and didn't want to be in school, but I gave them the choice to read what they wanted to read.

Within two weeks, they were complaining when I would ask them to put down the books. Could you send me some current research which indicates that a sustained reading program benefits adolescent readers?

We are having trouble in our high school with staff who do not feel that there are any benefits to the 20 minutes of sustained reading we do weekly with our students.

Sustained silent reading SSR time is beneficial for most adolescent readers, but we must be careful to not consider it a solution or intervention for struggling readers. First, let me address SSR as beneficial for most students. The more students of all ages read, the more their reading skills improve and their vocabulary grows.

We also know that motivation and self-directed learning is critical to promote more reading by teenagers. Here is a quote from that white paper:.