Improving Literacy Through a Two Year Reading Challenge
My students need copies of the Harry Potter series for this challenge, as there are not enough copies in the district, or even surrounding community libraries, to support all of the interested and eager students.
These students will be students from grades 7-9, who will come together every Friday for nearly a half an hour to discuss the Harry Potter assigned readings. These students are voluntarily reading books of their own free will, and as an extracurricular activity outside of their already scheduled classes and assignments.
They want to read...for fun!
We are anticipating having these students for this year and next year. The full 7 books would take two school years to complete. So next year, we could start a new round, plus have the second round going. This would help a number of students gain perspective, reading skills, and discussion skills necessary to be successful in their core classes.
These are students from all different friend groups, all different socioeconomic backgrounds, working together to read and understand the materials.
The students (7th-9th) have chosen to participate in the Harry Potter Reading Challenge. We are hoping to get students motivated enough to come every week to do 22 minute book talks with us and to do the reading outside of their normal classes. Both the Math teacher and I (English) have brought students together to do the reading challenge.
My Project
Reading needs to happen in order for students to improve their literacy. We all know this, but the problem is that many students have not yet found a book, series, genre or the like that really excites them, making that extra practice move to the back-burner. This is not the case for our students because they want to read the Harry Potter series, and this can only build onto other books and series. Some of our students do not read for fun, but have chosen to read this for fun, which means that we can create a culture where reading is valuable to them.
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