I sure wish my students inherently loved to read, and they all had wicked vocabulary skills, and I never had to convince them that a text was worthwhile of their time. If they did, that would make engaging reluctant readers much easier.

But that’s hardly ever the case, and more often than not, I have varying degrees of reluctant readers in my classroom. So the question becomes, How do I engage my reluctant readers? By the time students are in high school, they usually have a long history of not enjoying the reading requirements in school. And honestly, every student will probably be a reluctant reader at some time because they all have their own interests, experiences, and abilities. So what is a teacher to do?

Why are students reluctant?

Your strategies won’t get you far if you don’t get to the principle problem. Unless you happen to hit on the issue, spending your time looking up tips isn’t going to help your students long term. Look for any reason so you can personalize your solutions. Are there specific reading skills the student is struggling with? Is this a topic that is hard to identify with? Are there tasks associated with the reading that is keeping them disinterested? Perhaps the assignments themselves create a stress for students, such as requiring the class to read aloud. Is the text chosen something above their reading level?

Once you key in on the main issue, you’ll be better prepared to plan how to motivate your students.

9 Strategies for Engaging Reluctant Readers

Always Plan on Differentiating

If you haven’t planned for a potential problem, it is much harder to solve “in the moment.” This is why we, as teachers, spend a lot of time working on differentiating. You might be used to doing this with activities and writing expectations, but what about the text itself? Spend time looking at the text you’ll be reading and preemptively make plans to make it work with your students’ varying needs.

Keep It Short

Do your students need to read the whole text? Oftentimes you can flip through a textbook and see short snippets of longer works so students just “taste” the text before diving into the discussion. Interested students can dive deeper by reading a whole text, or you can offer enrichment activities for students who want to read more.

But if you can, pull the most meaningful excerpts and have the class work with those. Bite-size pieces are easier to work with, and students may feel more motivated seeing a shorter section of text rather than a novel.

Give Them Different Tasks

I don’t believe all my students need to do the exact same assignment to do the same work. It doesn’t make sense for my advanced students to breeze through an activity that takes some struggling students twice as long with twice as much work to complete. I have no issue grouping my students and, occasionally, giving them different assignments to work on.

A really great way to encourage reluctant readers is not to have them read the book at all. That’s right. Create a “Special Task Force” of students who will be working on the extra supplemental material for the class. Rather than the whole class reading an article accompanying the text, have your special group read ahead and present the material for everyone. This can be particularly helpful with period pieces with unfamiliar vocabulary or works with complex plots and discussions your reluctant readers may not be ready for. If you make this part of your reading groups the whole year, you can swap which students are in this particular group as you get to texts of varying levels.

Create Cheat Sheets

I’m not saying rely on Spark Notes. However, we know students refer to it, so use the concept to your advantage.

Students that can’t understand the material aren’t going to get far with any reading or assignments. I like to create Cheat Sheets (which can benefit all my students). These might include important vocabulary, especially if students need to understand period or subject-related vocab. You can also include fast facts about characters, relationships, or major plot points.

Make them cute and cut to fit the book so students can tuck it into it and refer to it as they read.

Find Something Similar

Oftentimes I don’t think it’s necessarily about reading this book title. It’s about the concepts, the characters, the lessons learned. So if we can read a more modern work and get the same things out of it, why not? I really don’t see a problem with having students read adaptations, modern retellings, and other period pieces that are easier to read when it comes to my reluctant readers. Even my advanced students might enjoy the change of pace. I also find that modern works tend to have a faster pace, which usually automatically gives me more engagement.

Don’t Overlook the Book

The way your books and text look is going to make a difference. If you clonk a big, dusty novel on the desk of your reluctant readers, how well do you think they’ll listen? Flip through your text and look at the layout. Is the font really crowded? Is it printed too small? What kind of distractions are there (footnotes, images, copied notes from years gone by)? Is it broken up effectively?

I had a teacher in high school who liked having us take notes on the pages. So she would make copies of these articles but they were printed very small so that we had margins around the text to write. It was a great activity in theory, but even an avid reader like myself dreaded getting the packets of tiny words.

Read for Fun

Teaching your students that reading can be enjoyable is really the lifelong skill we want to see. If you work on a particularly long or difficult novel, let students work in literature circles with some choice reads. Find a set of contemporary novels that fit in with the unit’s theme. Or, establish a set “free read” day that your students look forward to. For many years, that was Friday in my classroom. We loved taking a break and heading to the library as a class, or just having a quiet hour in the classroom to read whatever we wanted. I was able to establish a really good relationship with students as they gave me suggestions on what to read, and I made sure to read their suggestions and give them my honest review. It’s a great way to model reading different genres and how to have a real discussion about what you read.

It’s important to note as well that free reading doesn’t have to mean novels. I often saw my reluctant readers bring in magazines on interesting topics, and I was completely fine with that. Reading is reading. I’ve even had a student come in with a stack of cookbooks looking to build a meal for an upcoming Home Ec assignment.

Get Social

Have students work on social sharing what they read. Give students ownership of the information they know. It doesn’t always have to be you as the teacher leading instruction, discussion, and lecture. Let peers lead the way. Your more advanced students might lead a discussion topic in groups while a reluctant reader helps take the notes (so they can listen and write the information as well as participate without feeling on the spot with answering). Groups with varying reading levels create a valuable experience for all students.

Make It Mobile

Reading is mostly a passive activity – so what can you do to provide movement? Download an audiobook and have students walk laps outside or down the hallways. Do you have flexible seating options so students can move around wherever they are most comfortable? Do you have a box of fidgets students can grab as they read? All of these are great ways to get some movement with reading.

What are the best activities you’ve found for encouraging your reluctant readers? Have you tried any from this list? I love outside-the-box ideas and adding to my own toolbox of things to use in my classroom. Share your best suggestions here or over on Facebook and Instagram.

My Favorite Book for Reluctant Readers

My absolute favorite book to teach in a class filled with reluctant readers is Jason Reynolds’ novel Long Way Down. Every single time I teach this novel, students who claim they hate books and hate reading absolutely love it. They are completely engaged in the story.

You can check out my unit for teaching Long Way Down here. Also, be sure to check out my blog post about 25 ideas for teaching Long Way Down!

When it comes to engaging middle school ELA and high school English students, I’ve noticed a pretty consistent trend: teens like to color, doodle, and create. As much as some teens might moan and groan about coloring, it’s actually quite therapeutic, and it helps many disengaged students focus on the lesson, assignment, or assessment. That is why these coloring activities for secondary ELA are great additions to your curriculum!

However, when it comes to coloring in the classroom, all coloring-type assignments are not created equally and should not be used synonymously. And that also doesn’t mean it is time to simply pull out the coloring sheets for older students, either. Each coloring activity has a specific purpose. In fact, sketch notes and doodle notes, mind maps, and one-pagers all have their own distinct place and purpose in the classroom. And when used effectively, these activities and assignments help unlock students’ creativity and analysis skills.

Coloring Activities for Secondary ELA

Before diving into the different coloring activities, it is important to have the materials you need to successfully facilitate these assignments in the classroom. There have been quite a few times when I walked into my classroom at the start of a school day not planning on coloring, but I throw it in because at the last moment I felt that it would serve a purpose in my daily lesson. This blog post contains affiliate links that help cover the cost of the blog.

Supplies for Sketch notes, mind maps, and one-pagers

While some students might have the coloring supplies they need, not every student does. I usually have a supply box at each table with markers so each student can still create. Every two to three years, I stock up at the big box stores when markers are only $1. In addition to having coloring supplies, I also like to keep several different sizes of paper handy. My favorite sizes are 11×17 inch tabloid paper and 8.5×14 inch legal paper. Sometimes I provide the students with a choice of which size to use, and other times I dedicate a size to the assignment. These links are affiliate links.

Here is a list of some of my favorite supplies for coloring in the classroom:

• 11×17 inch paper
• 8.5×14 inch paper
• Rulers (best deal I’ve found)
• Stencils
• Markers
• Colored Pencils

Deciding on a Coloring Activity for Secondary ELA

Now that you’ve got your supplies all set up, it is time to decide between one of the three main types of coloring activities for the secondary ELA classroom: sketch notes, mind maps, or one-pagers. Here is a run-down of each.

Coloring Activities for Secondary ELA: Sketch notes and doodle notes

Sketch notes are visual notes that combine sketches and doodles along with words, visual elements, and graphical elements. Before beginning the sketch notes and doodle notes, I usually show students examples of images from Google, and I also draw some visual elements on the board for them to see.

Sketch notes are ideal for:

• Recording information as you learn it
• Class notes for direct instruction

Coloring Activities for Secondary ELA: Mind Maps

Like sketch notes, mind maps are another visual medium that combines illustrations and words to record and present information. However, unlike sketch notes, mind maps model what a synapse of a brain looks like. Mind maps have a centralized idea written and illustrated, and then have branches coming off of that centralized idea, each with related information. Just like I do with sketch notes, I turn to Google to share visual examples with my students (HINT: I find the best and most-detailed examples I can to inspire my students), and I also show them pictures of brain synapses so they can see the visual connection.

To help out struggling students, it is a good idea to help them with the centralized idea and then provide them with a list of topics for the branches. During my Long Way Down unit, I have my students create a mind map as we read Will’s journey. You can read more about that assignment in this mind map.

Mind maps are ideal for:

• Reviewing a book
• Presenting information on a concept
• Mapping one’s thinking about a topic
• Organizing and classifying information
• Showing comparisons and connections between stories in a genre

Coloring Activities for Secondary ELA: One-pagers

Finally, we come to one-pagers. Unlike sketch notes and mind maps which are primarily used for learning information, gathering information, and presenting information, a one-pager is more of a formal assessment where students combine visual and written information to demonstrate their understanding and analysis of a topic. I assign one-pagers at the end of a unit rather than before and during the unit.

At the end of my Night unit, I assign a one-pager to my students where they demonstrate not only their understanding of the story and its themes, but also provide additional connections and analysis. You can read more about that assignment in this blog post.

One-pagers are ideal for:

• Final assessment
• Demonstrating understanding of concepts
• An alternate assignment instead of an analysis essay
• Showing visual and written analysis