Dr. Krashen’s guidelines for implementing sustained silent reading activities

   
I am cur­rent­ly read­ing Dr. Stephen Krashen’s new book, Free Vol­un­tary
Read­ing (also known as Sus­tained Silent Read­ing). The guide­lines for Sus­tained Silent Read­ing at the end of Chap­ter 1 are very con­cise and prac­ti­cal, and are com­piled and orga­nized below.
   
First, it should be not­ed that the fol­low­ing 15 guide­lines or sug­ges­tions are based on a sum­ma­ry of the 83 stud­ies men­tioned above in the book. Fur­ther read­ing is required to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, this chap­ter is actu­al­ly a pub­licly avail­able paper, and the elec­tron­ic ver­sion can be found at the fol­low­ing web­site:

    81 Gen­er­al­iza­tions about Free Vol­un­tary
Read­ing
   
In addi­tion, you need to under­stand Krashen’s basic argu­ment as a lin­guist and read­ing expert: lan­guage acqui­si­tion comes from the implan­ta­tion of under­stand­ing, and free and vol­un­tary read­ing (or con­tin­u­ous silent read­ing) is the most effec­tive way to learn a lan­guage, which applies not only to Eng­lish, but also to oth­er native lan­guages and for­eign lan­guage learn­ing.
 
   
GUIDELINES for SSR Con­tin­u­ous Silent Read­ing Guide­lines:
 
   
1. Do a lit­tle each day, not a lot once a week (dis­trib­uted, not
massed) *
Do a lit­tle bit every day, rather than a lot once a week (spread it out, rather than con­cen­trate it).
   
A‑Jia Note: In prac­tice, most schools imple­ment­ing read­ing pro­grams man­age to have one read­ing class per week. This is good, but not good enough. It’s good because read­ing can be a stand­alone course, which means it can “legit­i­mate­ly” occu­py some teach­ing resources with­in the school, which would oth­er­wise be dif­fi­cult. How­ev­er, it’s not good enough because tru­ly effec­tive read­ing requires dai­ly prac­tice. Squeez­ing time for read­ing out of dai­ly teach­ing activ­i­ties requires wis­dom.
 
   
2. Less is more; do less than you think they can han­dle; if you
think they can sit and read for 15 min­utes, do ten min­utes.*
Less is bet­ter; sched­ule the dura­tion of sus­tained silent read­ing to be short­er than you expect your stu­dents to be able to sus­tain it; if you think they can sit and read for 15 min­utes, then read for 10 min­utes.
   
A‑Jia Note: Does Lao Tzu’s say­ing, “Less is gain, more is con­fu­sion” have a sim­i­lar mean­ing? My under­stand­ing is that it’s not the length of time that mat­ters, but the effi­cien­cy of chil­dren’s atten­tion. Read­ing also requires a cer­tain “hunger” to keep read­ing. In fact, a tru­ly “hun­gry” child will find ways to squeeze in time to sat­is­fy their hunger.
 
   
3. Make sure plen­ty of books and oth­er read­ing mate­r­i­al are
Make sure there are enough books or oth­er read­ing mate­ri­als avail­able.
 
   
4. Com­ic books are ok.
Read­ing com­ic books is also OK.
   
A‑Jia Note: Many read­ing exper­i­ments Krashen has con­duct­ed, par­tic­i­pat­ed in, and mon­i­tored have shown that expert com­ic read­ers are often also excel­lent read­ers and achieve excel­lent aca­d­e­m­ic results. My under­stand­ing is that com­ic read­ing itself is not harm­ful to read­ing, but rather ben­e­fi­cial, espe­cial­ly for chil­dren just begin­ning to learn to enjoy inde­pen­dent read­ing. Any poten­tial down­side to comics may stem pri­mar­i­ly from a lack of oth­er equal­ly inter­est­ing books to choose from.
 
   
5. Mag­a­zines are ok. Read­ing mag­a­zines is OK.
 
   
6. Grad­ed read­ers, books writ­ten for lan­guage stu­dents, are ok.
It is also OK to read grad­ed read­ers and lan­guage learn­ing mate­ri­als.
 
   
7. Let stu­dents select their own read­ing mate­r­i­al (SY Lee 2007)
Allow stu­dents to choose their own read­ing mate­r­i­al.
   
A‑Jia Note: Does this mean that chil­dren should pri­mar­i­ly read books they bring home at school? The answer is a resound­ing no. Rather, the point is that schools should, as much as pos­si­ble, pro­vide chil­dren with a rich and stim­u­lat­ing selec­tion of books through the library or class­room shelves, leav­ing it up to them to choose which books to read. This is because anoth­er study men­tioned above showed that hav­ing stu­dents bring their own books to school for sus­tained silent read­ing was inef­fec­tive, per­haps due to a lack of nov­el­ty.
 
   
8. Impose min­i­mum cen­sor­ship on what is read* (for dis­cus­sion, see
Tre­lease, 2004)
Cen­sor­ship of what stu­dents read should be kept to a min­i­mum.
   
Note from Ajia: Cui Lisi, the author of “The Read­ing Man­u­al”, also strong­ly advo­cates this. They believe that cen­sor­ing and restrict­ing stu­dents’ read­ing con­tent will seri­ous­ly dam­age their enthu­si­asm for read­ing.
 
   
9. It is ok for read­ers to read “easy” books (below their “lev­el”)
(Krashen, 2005b). It is OK for stu­dents to read easy books (below their so-called read­ing lev­el).
 
   
10. It is ok for read­ers to read “hard” (books above their “lev­el”)
(Krashen, 2005b). It is OK for stu­dents to read dif­fi­cult books (above their so-called read­ing lev­el).
 
   
11. Stu­dents don’t have to fin­ish every book they start to read.*
Stu­dents do not have to read every book from begin­ning to end. They do not have to fin­ish read­ing it.
 
   
12. Sus­tained silent read­ing is not for begin­ners. Begin­ners need
oth­er kinds of com­pre­hen­si­ble text. It also will not help advanced
read­ers who have already estab­lished a read­ing habit
(Krashen, 2001a).
Sus­tained silent read­ing (SSR) is not suit­able for begin­ners, who need a suit­able text that they can under­stand. It is also not help­ful for mature read­ers, who already have good read­ing habits.
   
A‑Jia Note: This is an impor­tant reminder. Sus­tained silent read­ing has a seem­ing­ly rigid imple­men­ta­tion mod­el, pri­mar­i­ly suit­ed to tran­si­tion­al learn­ers, such as those who have just begun to devel­op some read­ing abil­i­ty or those who have the abil­i­ty but haven’t yet devel­oped a habit. There­fore, it’s gen­er­al­ly rec­om­mend­ed that sus­tained silent read­ing be spread out over time, ide­al­ly 10–15 min­utes per day, rather than 40 min­utes once a week. From a school’s per­spec­tive, even for young read­ers who have already devel­oped a habit, more time should be pro­vid­ed for read­ing, but this is no longer a sus­tained silent read­ing activ­i­ty for learn­ing to read.
 
   
13. Sup­ple­ment SSR with activ­i­ties that serve to make read­ing more
com­pre­hen­si­ble and inter­est­ing (eg read alouds, trips to the
library, dis­cus­sion of lit­er­a­ture).
Activ­i­ties that help enhance com­pre­hen­sion and inter­est can be added to con­tin­u­ous silent read­ing, such as read­ing aloud, vis­it­ing the library, and shar­ing read­ing dis­cus­sions.
 
   
14. Don’t use rewards for read­ing, don’t test stu­dents on what is
read, do not require book reports. Use zero or min­i­mum
account­abil­i­ty. When the con­di­tions are right (com­pelling read­ing
mate­r­i­al avail­able, and enough read­ing com­pe­tence) direct
encour­age­ment can work.
Don’t use rewards to encour­age read­ing; don’t test stu­dents on what they’ve read; and don’t require read­ing notes (read­ing reports). Min­i­mize or elim­i­nate post-read­ing tasks. Sim­ply encour­ag­ing stu­dents to read can be effec­tive, as long as the con­di­tions are right (suf­fi­cient, acces­si­ble resources that inspire read­ing and stu­dents pos­sess suf­fi­cient read­ing skills).
 
   
15. How about some food and drink? Let’s try­ing eat­ing and read­ing
in the school library.* (Tre­lease and Krashen,
1996) 
How about eat­ing and drink­ing while read­ing? You can try let­ting chil­dren read while eat­ing and drink­ing in the school library.
 
Com­piled and edit­ed by Argen­tine Primera División on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2011 in Bei­jing