The students in my 7th and 8th grade reading classes were struggling readers, the students who did not meet the standard for satisfactory performance on the previous year’s STAAR test. Reading was not something they did well, and it was definitely not something they enjoyed. Instead of a personally chosen elective, one that allowed them to spend 50 minutes a day doing something they enjoyed, they would be spending 50 minutes a day doing something that the state confirmed for them the previous year they were no good at.
The first day of a new school year, the spring test date is already looming in the too near future for these students, and as teachers we want to hit the ground running to get them on track. If we don’t take the time to build relationships and instill hope, that will never happen. What can we do?
For many years, I shared with my students my efforts to start running to get into shape. I knew I needed to lose some weight, and I had a fellow teacher (who just happened to have run a few marathons in her life) convince me to sign up for an October 5K run. I shared my first “training day” with them. I woke up early on that hot Texas August morning, put on my running shoes and headed to the path that surrounded a small lake in my neighborhood, a path just under a mile in length. I tell them I started running, feeling pretty good, and then I got hot, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I pushed until I couldn’t go any further. I had made it less than half way around my mile path.
I always seemed to have a handful of athletes in my classes, and some of them were track stars. Without fail, my story always brought out some giggles and at least one student would say something like, “I guess you didn’t end up running that 5K.” I’d tell them that actually I did. I’d then say to them, “You guys know more about getting ready for an athletic event like that than I do, so what do you think I must have done for those 2 months before the 5K?”
And that is where I took advantage of instilling some hope. They were anxious to start sharing ideas of what I must have done… Practice every day, push yourself a little farther every day, and work on your breathing (with a few students willingly sharing some tips on how to do that). I shared with them that after a few days my legs were really sore, so they asked if I stretched before I started running. A few even suggested taking a break before getting to the point of feeling like collapsing so that you can start again. As they shared, I recorded these tips on the white board.
I make sure they know I felt like a total failure that day. I share with them how I looked around the lake when I stopped hoping that no one had seen what a loser I was because I hadn’t made it very far at all. I tell them I didn’t know what was wrong with me because everyone else makes it look so easy.
And then we start talking about reading…
We compare my feelings as a failing runner to their feelings as failing readers. We look at the list on the board and talk about how those tips could actually translate into similar tips to improve as readers. I share with them the experience of race day. I didn’t finish last, but I was far from first. My teacher running friend along with another teacher running friend both quickly took off ahead of me and finished long before me, but I didn’t let that bother me. I didn’t end up running the whole way, and I had to take some walking breaks in between, but I did finish running. I tell them about the push I felt at the end as the crowd clapped and cheered as I crossed the finish line. This was just the beginning, and we’d be having many small 5Ks in the reading classroom together this year before we got to our April marathon. We were ready to begin our training.
What do you do to instill confidence and build hope with your struggling readers? Please share in a comment!
Oh my word. Thank you for sharing this. I think this is a great way to connect with the students. I always use the story of when I was in 2nd grade to 6th grade. I was in pull out reading classes. I would have to go to a one on one reading teacher to review over site words. The words I had problems with were “were” “where” “thought” and “through.” I had to receive 7 stickers on the flashcards to show success. I hated it. I loved my teacher but hated the words. I did this for two years.
In 4th and 5th grade we had reading groups. I was put in the lowest one. I knew it was the lowest because of the books we had to read from and the SRA cards we would have to do. I would read and read because I did not want to be in the low group.
When I share this with my students they look at me crazy. The first question thing they say to me is you didn’t like reading at all. I tell them that it took up until high school to love reading. It took one teacher to hook me on just reading. It was not any specific book, it was just she was always excited about reading. She made it fun and not a chore.
I explain to my students that we are not going to like everything we read. However, the more we read we eventually find something out there that hooks us and we want to read. It takes time just like anything else we want to be good at.For someone of us it just takes a little more time to come out of that shell. Lucky for me I was able to turn a few students on to reading. That is just one more than before to share books with.