How to Build Resilience in Students Who Don’t, Won’t, Can’t Read

The Giver is one of my favorite books to teach because—to put it bluntly—it has a lower Lexile reading measure (760) than many books although it covers topics that are anything but simple: utopia/dystopia, euthanasia, population control, genetic engineering, social justice, and even anarchy. (Here’s the unit on The Giver.) For me, it is a sort of a means to an end, as students use the novel as the backdrop to create their own utopias and operate in the upper echelons of Bloom’s instead of basic recall. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the novel; it really is well-written and beautiful in that form-follows-function way of sparseness. Students love this book as well, once they get past their initial disorientation entering a “utopia” that is very different from the world they live in.

The problem, however, doesn’t lie with the 85 percent of students who read because they are interested, have strong supports at home, are compliant, or simply are “teacher pleasers.” The problem lies with the 15 percent who don’t/won’t/can’t read. Here are the supports I’ve put in place for the each subgroup, as well as the life preserver I throw all students as they become proficient readers.

The "Don't" Readers

These are the students who are capable of reading, do OK in school, but just don’t read because they are overscheduled with sports, lessons, activities, video games, etc., and they leave reading as a last priority. By the time these students are done with their endless days, they’d rather spend time Snapping with their friends or posting to Instagram. In a nutshell, these kiddos aren’t really defiant so much as disorganized or lazy. These are the students who leave their books in another teacher’s room, forget the reading schedule, or simply push the reading to the last second.

The primary way I help these kids is to make things simple. I post the reading schedule all along the main hallway my team uses. I make sure the reading schedule is sent home to parents in an email blast, and I post it to our website, flexibleclass.com. I also have a Google calendar that updates on the bottom of the page. I do give reading days, and I give students a class participation grade of 5 points—2 points for showing up with their book, and another 3 for silently reading and taking notes. Basically, I make the space for these students who might not do it for themselves. The goal, of course, is for them to fall in love with reading, become more fluent, and be able to enter the world of the book in a way that they’ll want to return again without my blocking out the time.

The "Won't" Readers

This group is usually only a handful of students—I’d say I have fewer than five out of 115 who say, “no” when given the opportunity to read in class. I try to dig deep into what is keeping them from reading, and first want to know if they are able to read, and are only being defiant to mask their deficiency. Sometimes I find this to be the case, but not always. For this group, I tend to offer survival strategies. I’m brutally honest: If you don’t read this book, you’ll fail the test, all the quizzes, and won’t be able to do an independent project later if you can’t contribute to a group. I offer them an out. The audio is posted on my website, and I allow them to “read” it that way. (All students know the link is there, but I don’t advertise it to everyone the same way.)

I also make clear that they don’t have to be perfect readers to do well. They can listen to the story, and practice the Quizlet I have provided. I only use questions on my quizzes that are posted there. If students read or listen, then practice with the Quizlet, I promise them they will at least pass. Once they have achieved a little success by listening and practicing Quizlet, they start to find success a possibility, and most get onboard with the reading.

The "Can't" Readers

Hopefully, but not always, these students already have been identified and have an individual education program that I work to support with my special education co-teaching partner, Laura. In those cases, we sometimes find a shorter synopsis, show a scene from a video and listen to the story with the students. Laura is also excellent at using a “listen, summarize, keyword” activity so that students understand the gist of the story, even if they miss some of the finer, more complicated details. She makes sure students take down some notes so that they can easily contribute to our group conversations. To that end, I encourage all students to bring notes into our rotating chair discussions.

The Life Preserver

As much as I’d love to say that students have a growth mindset and look at a failed quiz as an opportunity, I’m sure you’d all know it was a lie. A failed quiz is a tremendous setback to the students’ self-esteem and rate of future participation; it also sets parents on their backs like vultures. I recently decided to take the power back in this process. Instead of being a permanent situation, a failed quiz is mainly a character situation, not an academic one. I’ve pointed out that the only things separating success from failure are effort and perseverance. I want students to rise to the occasion. Here’s the “deal” I give my students: 

• Go to Quizlet.com.
• Join our class MsAmberChandler ELA8B with a name that I’ll know is you (not CoolCat).
• Practice the questions three times.
• Create a test (no true/false though) and take it.
• If you get a 70 or higher, set up a time to get a retake of the failed quiz. It will be different, but on the same questions.
• You’ll get the new grade.

The important part of this opportunity for students is that by completing the retake task, not only will they learn the material, but they also will experience what it is like to study and find success. Just this week, a boy who failed the first two quizzes, but did the remediation and got great grades, came up to me and said, “You know what I’m doing this time? I’m just going to do the Quizlet before the quiz.” Before you laugh or think, “no kidding,” think of your own students who would do the same thing--we all have them!

The next time you are tempted to let students learn from their actions, forcing them to face the music or accept the natural consequences (all phrases I’ve employed myself), try to remember that students come to us with different levels of resilience, and one of our greatest tasks is to help them build it. They aren’t likely to grow from failure, but instead will go down with the sinking ship. Throw them a life ring. That’s where the learning can happen—not just about the content, but about their character. If you have wondered when to incorporate social emotional learning, this is your moment.

Here are a few more resources: Look at how people have shown resilience around the world here, and discover seven key elements to build resiliency here.