Schools Hope a Good Read Will Promote Good Reading

Bogged down with required reading for nearly every class, John Colby has little time during the school year to read a book just for fun.

This fall, the senior at Mission Viejo High School won’t have a choice.

Teachers at the school have agreed to set aside 15 minutes each day for leisure reading. Classes will be shortened and the school day will start three minutes earlier to accommodate the change.

There will be no book reports, no essays, no discussion--just quiet time for students to curl up with the book or magazine of their choice.

“We just want to try to instill the habit of reading,” explained Principal Marilyn McDowell.

Reading experts applaud the effort by Mission Viejo and a few other Orange County high schools to target older readers, often overlooked by literacy programs directed mainly at elementary school children.

“It’s definitely being addressed more than I’ve ever seen before, and I’m very excited about it,” said Linda Clinard, a UC Irvine lecturer who specializes in reading education.

Garden Grove High School comes to a noticeable pause when the bell signals its daily reading time, which has been set aside for the last five years, said Principal Rhonda Friedman.

Students and teachers swap textbooks for a book or magazine and settle in for 15 minutes of uninterrupted reading.

By the time students reach high school, they often develop a distaste for reading as they plod through required science texts and history lessons, Friedman said.

Giving them a chance to read for fun helps rekindle the enjoyment often lost in the academic grind, she added.

“We’re trying to develop within students an enjoyment of reading--their reading, not our reading,” she said.

As a bonus, the extra time spent with a book may hone students’ vocabulary and comprehension, in turn boosting reading test scores, which consistently fall below those in math, McDowell said.

“Theoretically, they should come into high school with the reading skills, but that’s theory,” she said. “In reality, we need to work on reading skills.”

Just giving children time to read may not be enough, however, Clinard said.

If students pick up a book only to drop it 15 minutes later, they may not get the full reading experience. She suggested that teachers make that reading time more meaningful by having students write or discuss their reactions to the book.

“Just giving the time won’t make a difference as much as making guidelines as to how that time should be used,” she said.

“Any practice that is purposeful and meaningful is helpful to students,” she said. “But otherwise, they’re just turning the pages like little kids turn pages.”

There also is the issue of getting rambunctious teenagers to sit quietly for 15 minutes.

“I can see a lot of people sitting there and [messing] around,” Mission Viejo’s John Colby said. “It sounds like a good idea, but I don’t know if it’ll really work.”

He also questioned the impact of such little time on a person’s reading habits.

“I don’t know how much reading you can get done in 15 minutes,” he said.