The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Choice Words: Willow Glen High School student Nora Vizcarra and her classmates have picked their own printed materials to peruse during the school's new Daily Independent Reading Time.

Willow Glen High students get the 'DIRT' in new daily independent reading program

Teachers hope to entice students to pick up books outside of class

By Mary Spicuzza

When the old fourth-period bell rings at Willow Glen High School, the drill is running a bit differently this fall. To a visitor, it might appear a mass revolt as students pull out magazines, newspapers and novels and settle into their own little worlds. But high school teachers know it's far from chaos; it's the new Daily Independent Reading Time--in other words, it's DIRT.

By taking just three minutes out of each class period, the high school has found it can make room for 18 minutes of recreational reading each day. The goal of the high school's first independent reading program is to teach students that books are about more than studying, tests and homework. They also open new worlds of imagination, relaxation and fun.

"Reading is a lifetime skill," Willow Glen High computer teacher Fred Martin says. "The more you do it, the better you get."

The DIRT program took root last year, after discussions about improving students' reading comprehension repeatedly took center stage at faculty meetings. When the high school received a Hewlett-Annenberg grant, given at select schools across the country to raise student achievement, a group of teachers formed a reading committee to put the grant to work for literacy. The devoted crew met several times over the summer and came up with DIRT as a new way of getting students hooked on books.

Committee members hope to increase the value students place on reading as a recreational activity and to help them develop a positive attitude toward the world of books, all while increasing their reading comprehension. Ultimately, teachers hope to increase both the time students spend reading and the number of pages they read in that time.

And although students have been "getting dirty" for just a few weeks, teachers say they've been amazed by the response.

"Each day I go around to another teacher's classroom, and I've been so impressed by how quickly students have gotten in the habit of bringing their own materials and settling down to read," 10-year veteran science teacher Gail Cahn says.

During one recent reading period, students were absorbed enough in the printed word that the appearance of a reporter in their classroom didn't even faze them.

While teachers like Martin and Cahn are very pleased by student response, they hope to expand the program over the course of the year. Martin says he hopes that soon, 10:24-10:42 a.m. will be independent reading time for the entire campus--from teachers and students to administrative staff and groundskeepers.

"It's a cultural and attitudinal thing," Martin says. "We hope to have the entire campus reading together every day."

Teachers on the committee, who have derived much of their inspiration from educational guru Stephen Krashen's work, The Power of Reading, say they hope to look at different ways of strengthening appreciation for books of all kinds. Teachers also plan to bring visiting experts to the school to help students fine-tune their comprehension skills.

For now, the silence hovering over Willow Glen High School for almost 20 minutes each morning already says wonders about the program's success. "And this is just a first step," Martin says.

But an important one.

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