How Do You Create a Culture of Readers?

Creating a reading culture in your school can be as simple as re-evaluating how you promote and talk about reading. Here's an incentive program that helps promote a culture of readers. It can be done as a class or as a school but is most effective when done school-wide. [I wish I'd thought of it, but I didn't.]

The Million Words Club 

At the elementary school my kids went to, students can read any books they choose to get to a million words read in a year. When they get there, the art teacher does a cartoon drawing of them reading and it hangs framed in the hallway until they graduate and take it home (my daughter is in college and still has hers). You could easily do a photo booth session with lots of books or something fun related to reading instead of the cartoon drawing. Students can earn ribbons to add to their framed photo for each additional year they read a million words.

The school started this program 12 years ago and it’s still going strong. The kids can’t wait until they get their cartoon in the hallway. No one is required to try but almost all the kids do. They track the words they've read by looking up the book's word count on Lexile.com and adding the book names and word count to their tracking sheet. There’s a big assembly at the end of the year to congratulate all the kids who make it each year. There's also a lot of love and encouragement for the students who tried.

All my primary teacher friends are rolling their eyes right now. Don't worry, I've got you covered. Keep reading.

What to Do for the Primary Grades

Kindergarten thru 2nd grade can work with their parent for a family reading award [photo] if the student and parent read a million words together. I'd put these is a different place than the individual student awards, or they could simply go home with the student after the assembly.

This program has created a culture of readers at the school. Here's why I think that is:

Instead of investing is expensive reading programs like Accelerated Reader, the school uses the money to buy books for classrooms and the school library every year instead. So there's constantly new material for students to read. The whole school - teachers, non teaching staff and students - talk about books and characters like they're old friends. Students are constantly asked by adults in the school "what book are you really loving right now?" Or, who has a recommendation for a great ____ (mystery, adventure...) for Megan? Or, You reminded me of Ramona in Ramona and Beezus when you said that. The whole school staff has simply invested themselves in creating a reading culture. Students assume being a reader is simply a given in this school because reading is cool.

Here's great ways to extend that:

• Students can do book reviews for their class and school library on a note card that is placed next to a featured book on a shelf in the classroom or school library.
• Create your own rating system and let students rate them like movies. [ 1 to 5 books 📕 or apples 🍎 or hearts 💙]
• Have a featured book display in your library or classroom with book jackets or copied images of book covers.
• You could do a shelf of staff picks, classroom picks or even parent/family picks. Change it out each month with opportunities for different classroom's favorites to be featured. Make sure there's a variety of grade levels represented.

I know what you're going to say...But Lisa, how do teachers know students actually read the books?

So... the most of the kids and families are really honest but some of them, not so much.

Here's how to handle that:

1. The school began really talking A LOT about personal integrity with the kids and complimenting them for any acts that show personal integrity (no rewards or awards, just noticing and acknowledging).

But, you could give High Fives [Pieces of paper with a handprint on it, their name on it and what they did to show personal integrity] to be hung on a bulletin board near the school office. Once a week, the principal could grab a random name off the board, announce it and have that student come down to the office to get high fives or hugs from the office staff and to choose a brand new book to keep [reinforces the culture of readers].

2. On RANDOM books [every 5 - 15 or so], teachers would give the students a comprehension sheet and tell them which book on their list to do it on. There are different sheets that can be chosen by the teachers - summary, main idea, theme, talk about the protagonist... Students shouldn't ever know when they'll get one or which sheet they'll get. This way students have to have read all the books. Students get a completion stamp on the comprehension paper and on their tracking sheet unless it doesn't match the book (so no grading, just a quick read thorough). In which case, they either have to reread the book and try again with a new/different sheet when they finish or take the book off their list.

This keeps everyone honest without the huge burden on teachers to grade book reports and without sucking the joy out of reading for kids.  

So tell me...Does your school do something special to create a culture of readers?