Reader Response Journals

• Introduce the concept of a reader response journal to your elementary, middle or even high school students at the beginning of the year. Give students a lined 8-by-10-inch journal with blank covers. Or, make your own out of construction paper and lined notebook paper. Let the students decorate the covers. Help them select a book they are interested in reading. Have them express their feelings, thoughts, questions and reactions to the books they’re reading after every chapter or at the end of every short book. Encourage them to make predictions about what they think is going to happen in the story and what each character’s motivation is. Require the students to turn in the journals at regular intervals for grading. Grade upon participation in the activity.
  
  

Active Reading Strategy

• Introduce students to the idea of active reading. Provide students with an assigned book and three to five questions about the main points of the content of the book or a section of the book. Require students to answer the questions before they read the assigned selection. Have students read the passage or book, then evaluate their answers to the questions to see how on-target or off-target they were. Lead a group discussion of the book content, encouraging students to share their answers, reactions, thoughts and feelings about the content. Ask students what they can do with the knowledge they’ve gained from the reading and how they will allow it to impact their lives.
  
  

Visualization

• Help students understand that reading prompts imagination with a visualization exercise. Select a passage of a book that is rich in visual imagery, depicting sights, smells, feelings, actions and movement. Give students a copy of the passage. Have them follow along while you read it aloud. Stop during the passage, and instruct students to close their eyes and imagine by asking questions like “What do you see?” and “What do you smell?” and “What do you feel?” Have students read the passage again themselves and create a picture of the selection. Lead the class in a group discussion about the drawings they created and what they imagined as they read the text.
  
  

Interacting with Textbooks

• One of the skills students must master in order to perform well in school is the art of reading textbooks and retaining the information presented in them. Textbooks present much information in a small space; that can make textbook material overwhelming for students. Help students interact with the material through skimming, pictures, predictions, quizzes, outlines and summaries. In each lesson plan involving a textbook, make photocopies of the textbook pages, and encourage students to underline or highlight main points on their photocopies. Have them summarize the information in each section into four to six main points on a separate piece of paper. Select textbooks with photos or provide a collection of photos to supplement the printed material to make it more engaging to students. Provide students with graded quizzes at the end of each section, testing their retention of each section.