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Recreational Reading and Reflective Reading Responses for College Students

By Barbara McLay, University of South Florida

Much research shows that reading for recreation at any age is highly correlated with reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary. We decided to encourage reading as a leisure activity for our college students by allowing them to use self-selected materials as one component in our Critical Reading and Writing Course. The written responses to what we hope is pleasurable reading are designed to be less intimidating than typical essay questions requiring analysis of literature. The responses require students to relate what they have read to their own lives-to connect with the reading in a personal way-with no right or wrong answers.

In the Critical Reading and Writing course, which is a full semester four credit-hour course, there are three major components that we believe contribute to the improvement of the students' reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary: classroom instruction with a prescribed textbook, reading lab assignments with book-work and computer-work, and outside recreational reading with scheduled written responses. The response component was implemented based on research that showed that for adolescents and younger children, extensive recreational reading with self-selected materials contributed to improvement in reading comprehension, critical thinking, vocabulary acquisition, and reading enjoyment (Everett, 1987, Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkerson 1988, NAEP, 1992, Nimon, 1992, Howard, 1999, Caldwell, K. & Gaine, T. 2000).

Although there is less research showing that recreational reading improves reading ability for college students, one study showed a positive relationship between grade-point average and time spent in recreational reading (Gallik, 1999), and another found that students with lower reading proficiency in college reported a decline in reading for pleasure in middle school (McCoy, et al, 1991). More specifically, two studies found that students who were non native speakers of English were able to handle college reading after being encouraged to spend time reading novels (Yang, 2001) and that students learning English as a foreign language showed superior gains in vocabulary and reading rate when they were enrolled in a class that emphasized reading for enjoyment (Lao & Krashen, 2000). Our own observations have shown us that our students who exhibit problems with college reading are those who do not read for pleasure.

Some assumptions supporting the addition of recreational reading to our course requirements are that students who are allowed to assume some control over their reading selections are more engrossed in their books, are more likely to actually do the reading, and are more likely to complete a book. Feedback from our students supports these assumptions. Many of our students report that this is the first time they have ever completely read a book.

Personal involvement with students' self-selected books is further enhanced by the reader response questionnaire that asks critical thinking questions related to their reading. The students are given a choice not only in what they will read, but in what questions they will answer in response to what they read. Students are given eighteen sets of questions that ask them to interact or personalize, make predictions, or in some way become involved with and reflect on what they have read. Since we require only four responses for the semester, the eighteen questions allow students enough choices to do different responses for each response if they so choose, though students may select to answer some sets of questions more than once, and, of course, many questions may be avoided altogether. We continuously add to the list of question-sets as student responses and book conferences generate more ideas.

Mainly because the majority of the questions we have created to use for responses ask about plot, setting, characters, or predictions, we encourage students to read various types of fiction, but biography, autobiography, or narratives of true events work also. Occasionally we have encountered a student who simply cannot get "hooked" on reading a story, so we made six of the question sets suitable for non-fiction books-questions about the author, about enjoyment, about learning something, for example. Flexibility seems to be the key to getting the students turned on to reading. Sometimes we have to make compromises and allow a student to select something like Chicken Soup for the College Soul, but we continue to make every effort to convince students that reading fiction is worthwhile and educational.

We have discovered that the reason many of our students resist reading fiction is because they think that reading fiction is a waste of time; they resist reading a book that is not required for some course or does not in some way contribute to their career goals. Sometimes we can get resistant fiction readers to struggle through a classic such as Animal Farm, The Scarlet Letter or A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court because they've heard of the book and recognize it as "literature," some classic that they should know that is also short. Another motivational technique to persuade students to read fiction is to show them that becoming involved with a story is an easy method to pick up the jargon for some desired career, such as having pre-med students read Robin Cook's novels, or pre-law students read John Grisham's. The majority of our students, however, just like the idea that reading for fun is a requirement of the course.

We ask students to read a minimum of one hundred pages before the written response is due. Due dates occur approximately every three weeks. A large number of our students read two or three hundred pages, or even an entire book in the three weeks, but a few will barely get through the hundred pages. Earlier, we had asked students to read two hours a week, but there seems to be less falsifying of reporting when we look at pages rather than time. We keep the number of pages low to avoid intimidating non-readers by assigning what may seem to them more reading than they can get through, but also with hopes that students will get hooked on the stories and read more.

Students are required to bring their recreational reading books to every class, and as often as we can, we give them ten minutes at the beginning or even in the middle of the class to read from their books. If we allow them to read the last ten minutes, some students get "antsy" and look at the clock more than they look at the pages; so the last ten minutes is sometimes, but seldom, used for recreational reading. There are several good reasons for having students bring their books to the class: (1) We know the student actually has a book to read. (2) We can check to see how many pages the student is reading in the ten minutes in class to compare with the time and pages reported as read outside of class. (3) We can tell if the students are actually interested in the books, and if some seem not to be, we encourage them to try something else from the racks of paperbacks and hardcover books we keep in the classroom. (4) The ten minutes reading time provides flexibility for lecture lengths, classroom activities, and rainy days when many students arrive late to class. (5) Taking time from the scheduled class meeting time reinforces the idea that recreational reading is educational. (6) Sometimes students get hooked on a book from the ten minutes he must read it in class.

Our reading response form requires students to report the number of pages read as well as the time spent reading, but we keep the penalty small for not reading the required number of pages, and we might reduce the number of required pages for individual students who are not native speakers of English, for those who start the class with a very slow reading rate, or for ambitious students who select a book like Moby Dick. We find the page and time part of the report quite useful for judging reading speed and concentration as well as accuracy in reporting. If a student reads one hundred pages in two hours one week, but the following week he reports four hours' reading time for a hundred pages in the same book, the instructor might hold an informal book conference.

Earlier, we would find that students were reporting longer reading times in order to meet the minimum time requirement for the week's reading, but since we began requiring students to read a minimum number of pages rather than a minimum time, we can get a better idea of what problems they might be encountering. For example, if we see that it took a longer than usual time for a student to read a section, we might ask, "What was so hard about this part?" or "Was there some distraction as you were reading this?"

The conferences are brief, infrequent, and non-confrontational. They mostly occur just before or just after a class and can take less than a minute, though if there seems to be some continuing problem, we can schedule an office meeting to work with the student. Every effort is made to make the recreational reading component of the class non-threatening and enjoyable. We want reading for pleasure to become a life-time habit for our students.

To get the students started on the recreational reading program we first ask them to select any fiction book to read. We have in the classroom a small library of suitable paperback and hardcover books that we allow students to simply pick up and take away without filling out any forms. This way the students do not have to worry about getting a book back by a certain date, and they do not get stressed if they take their books away on a holiday and forget to bring them back. Students and staff-not just from our Reading and Learning Program-bring used books for our classroom library, and program staff are always on the lookout for garage sale paperbacks. Each semester we gain more books than we lose. Students do not have to select a book from the classroom library, of course, but we do ask that if the book is not from the classroom collection that they have their books approved by the instructor before the first response is due.

By the third class meeting, we expect students to bring their books to class, and we usually give them the first ten or fifteen minutes of this class for recreational reading. Then we hand out the form that is going to be used to complete the written responses. This form also can be found on our program's webpage. The form takes the students through the steps for writing the reading response paragraph by paragraph. The first paragraph is a reading report that asks for the title of the book, the author's name, how many pages and how much time was spent reading for the response, and whether this is the same book used for a previous response or a different one. The second paragraph is a three-sentence summary of what was read. The third is a note to the author to express an opinion. The main part of the paper-which may require more than one paragraph, or may be very short, depending on the question selected and the student's ideas-requires students to respond to the story and to relate elements of the story to their own lives. The set of questions on the setting, for example, requires the students to reflect on how accurately the time and place are depicted, how the setting connects to the plot, and if the reader would enjoy living in that time and place. A shorter set of question asks the reader to reflect on the title, how the author came up with it, its appropriateness, and how it relates to the plot, setting, and characters. Our "Dear Abby" question lets the reader give advice to one of the characters. The focus of the questions is to try to get the students to connect to and to understand the story and the characters, to allow them to learn to enjoy reading by getting involved with the story.

Not everyone likes the same television shows, movies, sports, or books. Forcing students to read books that do not hold their attention and then asking them to analyze elements of the story or the author's intentions often discourage students from picking up books for fun. We think that by allowing students to select their own books and answer questions that do not require research or even deep thought-questions that can, in fact, be fun-fosters reading for pleasure as a lifelong habit.

Editor's note: The Appendix to this article, which includes a variety of questions for college recreational reading responses, may be found at www.learningassistance.com/forums.

References

Anderson, C. et al. (1988). Growth in reading and how children spend their time outside of school. Reading Research Quarterly, 23 (3) 285-303.

Caldwell, K. & Gaine, T. (2000) "The Phantom Tollbooth" and how the independent reading of good books improves student's [sic] reading performance. ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number ED449462.

Everett, I. (1987). Recreational reading effects on reading comprehension achievement. ERIC Document ED283123

Gallik, J. D. (1999). Do they read for pleasure? Recreational reading habits of college students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 42(6), 480-88

Howard, C. (1999). An Evaluation of the Accelerated Reader Program in grades 3-5 on reading vocabulary, comprehension, and attitude in an urban southeastern school district in Virginia. ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number ED465987.

Lao, C. & Krashen, S. (2000). The impact of popular literature study on literacy development in EFL: More evidence for the power of reading. System, 28 (2), 261-70.

McCoy, D. (1991). Surveys of independent reading: Pinpointing the problems, seeking the solutions. ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number ED341021.
NAEP (1992). A synthesis of data from NAEP's 1992 integrated reading performance record at grade 4: Report.

Nimon, M. (1992). Children's reading. A Research Report. ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number ED355496.

Smith, M. C. (2000). The real-world reading practices of adults. Journal of Literacy Research, 32(1), 25-52.

Yang, A. (2001). Reading and the non-academic learner: A mystery solved. System, 29(4), 451-66

Questions or comments? Contact the author at bmclay@cchd.usf.edu.

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