Hi Leila,
I truly appreciate your question because within it, you ask about the best way to have students read, which is the ultimate goal. I know this likely seems simplistic and silly, but I notice that in our conversations around how best to teach reading skills, it’s easy to get caught up in the details and forget that this is the end goal. So, by prioritizing time to read each day, I’d say you’re already on track.
Give me a minute to empathize with the crux of the issue before talking about an alternative. As you say, round robin reading, where students take turns reading one at a time, is ineffective, especially in a larger group, because it is so inefficient. Only one student practices reading at a time, severely limiting the number of words each student individually reads. As teachers, we’ve tried to be creative and think of ways to help keep students engaged and reading when it’s not their turn by layering additional elements like “popcorn reading,” where a student reads, stops, says “popcorn,” and calls on another student to take over. In theory, this is supposed to help make sure everyone is paying attention and reading along because it could be their turn any minute. But in practice, there is still only one student reading, and now we’ve often inadvertently layered on additional problems (such as the social layer of who does and doesn’t get called on; the uncertainty of whose turn it is, which can create anxiety in students; or the randomness of where the reading is halted, which can impact fluency and comprehension).
So what should teachers do instead? I’ll assume that you’re asking for additional ways to read text out loud so that students get practice reading with appropriate phrasing, rate, expression, and other aspects of fluency. If you haven’t already checked out our Automaticity & Fluency Lesson Toolkits, that would be my first suggestion. There, we have toolkits for group reading (see specifically echo, choral, and partner reading) that might get at what you’re looking for. However, it is not as simple as “Stop This-Do That!” Choral reading (where the whole group reads together) isn’t any more effective than round robin reading if, as you say, there are still several students who are unable to or choose not to participate.
Unfortunately, simply changing the activity itself is unlikely to be the golden ticket that solves all your problems. That being said, we are quite proud of the Take Note! and Differentiation sections of our toolkits. It sounds like your class has a high population of students with attention deficits, so it may make sense to keep choral reading but use one of the activities’ differentiation tips. In this case, I might recommend intentionally breaking the class into pairs or small groups. This way, everyone is still reading the text together, but the smaller groups may help ensure participation (because there is less opportunity to hide and avoid reading). It also may encourage participation among reluctant and struggling readers (because a small group may feel safer). You can also consider giving an alternate activity, like partner reading, a try. The important thing to keep in mind when selecting one of these reading formats is that they should be used in a way that allows each student to get ample practice with feedback.
But the other thing I want to mention is that the purpose of group text reading is also important. I don’t want my advice to be taken to mean that every time you read text with a whole class, they must be choral reading, echo reading, or partner reading. These activities can be beneficial for providing instruction and practice with reading fluency, but that’s not the only reason we have students read. While fluency and comprehension are very much connected, sometimes our instructional focus is comprehension-oriented. Maybe we are guiding students to process a dense or important section of text. In these cases, silent reading, whisper reading, or reading the text aloud to students may be appropriate. Most often, it’s a blend of activities, possibly even used at different points all within one lesson.
Let me try to describe what I mean by outlining a sample lesson. My class is reading a complicated book, and I’ve set the day’s purpose for reading: “Why did the main character make a sudden shift in her behavior?” Some students read the day’s section by themselves, some students read with partners, and some students read chorally in a small group with me. I make this decision for grouping depending on each student’s needs. Then, we all come together for discussion. There is one paragraph in particular I’ve selected to revisit. I read this paragraph to students again, modeling appropriate fluency and expression. Next, we annotate the section looking for the actions of the character’s best friend because I know that drawing the class’s attention to this information will support them in better understanding the character’s decision. After our annotation and discussion, we all have the knowledge that the character was annoyed with her friend, and so she made abrupt decisions to hurt her in the same way she felt hurt. I end the lesson by having the class chorally read the section with the fluency and expression I modeled to convey this emotion (annoyance) and reflect our new shared understanding. The takeaway isn’t that I had a variety of activities. The takeaway is that the different ways I had students read were selected to match the intended purpose. The why is as important as the how.
My parting words: don’t lose sight of the goal. We want students to read text- a lot of text! And we also want to consider our purpose for reading when selecting an activity (or combination of activities).