Independent Reading

I would really like to encourage my students to do their own independent reading outside of class.  To me, beyond simply studying, this seems to be the best form of homework for my students to improve their vocabulary and get correct input.

Of course, even reading in their native language can be an arduous endeavor for students and many students end up hating it altogether (see my post "Death to Reading"), so how do we get them to read in a language completely new to them?  Luckily, for me, this is an opportunity to help my students re-discover a love of reading (see my post "The (Re)Birth of Reading").

I plan to set a weekly reading time requirement for students to read and journal about.  At first, it may be as little as 10 minutes of reading each week, building up to 30 minutes for higher levels.  Time is a better requirement than a certain number of pages/words as every students can make an effort for 10 minutes and progress as far as their level and ability allows them to, while a set number of pages or something similar might take a higher student a small effort to complete while it is near impossible for another student to complete no matter how long or hard they try.

Along the same lines, I want it to be as flexible as possible so that students feel they have some choice in the matter and are able to find what works best for them.  For instance, I don't want to put a requirement on the texts they read.  While we will complete novels and reading in-class that we use for discussions and other assignments/work, I want students to select their own materials to read outside of class.  Of course, I will guide them toward the materials of most benefit to them in language acquisition through teaching them how to tell if a book is an appropriate level for them as well as providing a "leveled" library of materials that they may check out, including readers such as those published by Blaine Ray and Carol Gaab and even short stories written by me and other students.  However, should students find books like children's stories or popular novels they've read in English more interesting and rewarding, they would be welcome to try reading those as well!  They would be welcome to find books on their own either from the library or bookstore (and hopefully even donate them to the class library when they're done!).  I did consider allowing students to use online materials, but believe that would result it text being copied and pasted into translators.  I think I'll just stick to books :)

A reading journal would be used to help students (and me) keep track of their reading.  Students would record the title and author of what they read as well as a brief summary/translation of the text and/or what they learned.  Since the goal would be to improve reading, I would allow them to write their summaries in English or in Spanish, but encourage students (especially upper levels) to try writing their summary in Spanish.  Of course, there would have to be a minimum requirement for how long the summaries have to be - possibly one word per required minute?  For instance, students required to read for 10 minutes each week would have to have summaries at least 10 words long.  In addition, they would create their own "personal dictionary" logging the new words they found.  Having done this myself, I would give them a minimum number of words (maybe using the same guideline for length of reading?) so that they don't have to log each and every new word.  I would also encourage them to log the most important words, whether it's a common word that they hear/read often or because it is a word they want to incorporate into their vocabulary.

I believe this process will set them up for success and allow them to gain a love for reading and an important means for input.  Now, I just need to start building up my Spanish library!

EDIT:  More reasons to support independent reading!  Is Self-Selected Pleasure Reading the Cure for the Long-Term ELL Syndrome? A Case History