Sustained Silent Reading and Young Adult Short Stories for High School Classes

ALAN Review, Fall 2002 by Jensen, Terry L, Jensen, Valarie S

K-What We KNOW.

The Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading program (USSR) was first proposed by Lyman Hunt at the University of Vermont in the 1960's, and by the 1970's it was being implemented in the public schools system. Four decades later one can find it referenced by many different names: High Intensity Practice (HIP), Motivation in Middle Schools (MIMS), Free Voluntary Reading (FVR), Positive Outcomes While Enjoying Reading (POWER), Drop Everything and Read (DEAR), but perhaps the most commonly used name is Sustained Silent Reading (SSR).

The basic premise of allowing SSR time is that students who read often will read better. Classrooms should allow every possible opportunity for this activity to take place. As Pilgreen states in The SSR Handbook: How to Organize and Manage a Sustained Silent Reading Program, "If students are to be fully proficient readers, . . . they eventually need to break away from the scaffolding activities that support them in their roles as emergent readers and begin to read some materials independently" (in Anderson 1). Since its introduction, SSR has been implemented at all grade levels and according to research has been highly effective in the improvement of reading skills and the acquisition of vocabulary, not to mention the development of a positive attitude in students toward reading.

In their article "Evaluating Sustained Silent Reading in the Reading Classes," Chow and Chou list what they call "Key Elements to Successful SSR" (Chow 3). Some are that: (1) The teacher must be a role model - not just to model silent reading, but to model the enjoyment of reading as well; (2) SSR must be a long-term project - SSR appears most effective if used over a period of at least 6 months; (3) Materials must be available on a wide range of topics and readability - the importance of a wide variety is to ensure that each student will find a book that will be of interest to him/ her; and (4) SSR must involve ownership and communities of readers - students need to be able to feel ownership of the reading material (Chow 3-4).

It was with these key elements in mind that we, as high school language arts teachers, convinced our faculty to implement a version of SSR, the DEAR program, throughout our school. On Thursdays at the appointed moment all activity stops, and everyone throughout the school picks up a book, and all read. To extend this activity, the Language Arts teachers conduct SSR in their individual classes on Fridays. However, the implementation was not without snags. One major problem occurred in the school library. Students, who were unaccustomed to having a "reading" book in their possession, would make a quick trip to the library between classes. They would grab a book from the shelf, so they would have one on hand for the DEAR period and SSR. Then, when the moment passed, they would return the book to the library, overloading the staff at the circulation desk. Obviously, the students weren't reading the books over long periods. Rather, they were just looking for something to fill the time. The library staff threatened mutiny. We suggested that reading material be provided that was more suited to the time allotted, and, in an effort to bring peace, the language arts department filed for and was awarded a grant, so that each language arts teacher could purchase a class library.

The majority of the students who failed to bring a pre-selected book to class were the reluctant readers. The teachers needed a selection of books that would catch the reluctant readers' attention and hook them on reading. A wide variety of topics and readability was needed. The solution appeared to be young adult short story anthologies.

W-What we WANTED to Know

Young adult short story anthologies would allow for a wide range of topics and readability levels for the least amount of money, but would they hook the reluctant reader and help make SSR a success? We gathered a collection of short story anthologies (See Appendix A) and made it available in the classroom. Those students who failed to bring a book to class were required to select a book from the classroom collection. At the end of the SSR period the student was then required to complete a "short story evaluation form" (Appendix B), regarding the reading experience for that period. At first, two team-taught ninth grade English classes with a large population of mainstreamed resource students were selected to participate. Then the same DEAR program expectation was extended to the two ninth grade honors classes and the two regular ninth grade English classes.

L-What we LEARNED

What the Honors Students Taught Us

In order to get feedback from the honor students, we had to solicit volunteers. Honor students rarely "forgot" to bring a reading book to class. The volunteers gladly filled out the evaluation form, and most of their comments extended to the back of the form. With few exceptions, the honor students finished the reading of the short story in the appointed time period and stated that they would go back and finish the story, had they not been able to finish it during the period. However, if given the choice to read a novel or a short story during the reading time, the majority of honor students stated they would rather read a novel during the SSR period than a short story. Many of them stated they liked the long-term commitment of a novel.