My first step in this is to show them my love of reading. Now, if I'm being honest, I don't read a whole lot. The way I talk to the kids though, they probably think I go home every night and read several chapters. I want them to think this, so they may want to do that too.
Right at the beginning of the year I decided to figure out what my students like to read. I had them fill out a book interest survey.
After I read through their surveys, I picked two books I thought each of them might like and left them out on their desks for the next morning. Then it was up to them to pick one or both of the books to try reading. I told them they need to at least try one or two chapters from a new book.
I could already see the excitement about reading building. The next step was them sharing what they are reading. In my classroom I have a bulletin board dedicated to free reading and read aloud.
The students each have a book where they write what book they are reading. This serves a couple purposes. One, when I conference with them I can look up at the bulletin board first and know which book we will be talking about. Two, the students can see what each other is reading and use that as a way to get recommendations on their next book.
My last technique to encourage reading is easily the most expensive. I have a book buying problem. I love getting new books for my classroom. This gets the kids excited about reading because there's often a new pack of books every other month. I do little book talks when the books come by reading the back and telling them anything I know about it. Then the kids can ask for it, almost like an auction. In this first week of school I already put in an order for new books and started talking them up to my students to build their anticipation.
Pretty much my biggest suggestion to teachers who want to get their kids to be excited about reading would be to get excited about reading yourself and show the students that excitement!
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