1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective Readers
Joanne Kaminski

2. Our goal is to turn every reader into a highly effective reader, but before we can do that, we need to find out what highly effective readers do.
They love listening to books.
They have books everywhere.
They know how to pick out just right books.
They read often.
They read for meaning.
They like to read out loud.
They use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies.

3. Love Listening to Books
Never too young or old to listen to books.  

4. Love Listening to Books

5. Love Listening to Books
Get a CD player with multiple head jacks and create a station for kids to listen to a book together.
Go to and have students watch their favorite actors read their favorite books.
Invite parents to come into the classroom and read to small groups of students.
Invite older kids in the school to come to your classroom and read books to your students.

6. Have Books Everywhere
Not everyone has the benefits of having books everywhere.
According to research by Richard Allington 2006
Classrooms with a larger supply of books had kids who read more frequently.
Classrooms with a larger supply of books usually had more kids reading books they could read successfully.

7. Have books everywhere
Create a classroom library with about 100 books per child. For example, if you have 20 students, then you will want to have 2,000 books.
Stock your classroom with the newest books in a series that your students love.
Do book talks to get your students excited about reading new books.

8. Have books everywhere
Create a silent sustained reading time, where kids can read books of their choice each day.
Spend a few minutes each day talking with kids individually to find out what is happening in their books and to take the time to listen to them read.
Sign up for Scholastic Book Club.

9. Have books everywhere Read a book aloud to your class.
Talk with the reading specialist or principal to see if you can book an author to motivate kids to read and write.
Research authors that your students enjoy reading and find out what other books they have written.
Teach students how to find a book trailer.

10. Read Often
If They Don’t Read Much, How They Ever Gonna Get Good? – Richard Allington According to research by Cunningham and Stanovich a student in the 98th percentile reads 65 minutes a day. This adds up to 4,358,000 words a year. Students at the 20th percentile read .7 minutes a day. This adds up to 21,000 words per year.

11. Read Often
Have your students rate books after they have read them using a 5 star system.
Post the titles of books that have the highest stars for kids in your class to read so that others will be motivated to read them.
Incorporate author studies in your classrooms.
Cut-out “stuff” – worksheets, busy work

12. Richard Allington on reading often - 2006
“Perhaps workbooks and all skill-and-drill reproducibles should be required to carry a warning: Caution. Sustained use of this product may cause reading/learning difficulties. Conversely books might carry a label that said: Research has demonstrated that regular reading of this product can reduce the risks of acquiring a reading/learning disability.”

13. Read because they love to, not because they are told to.
I cannot live without good books. - Thomas Jefferson
Mikayla’s reading experience with homework

14. Read because they love to, not because they are told to.
Create a comfy place in the classroom for kids to choose to read. You can bring in a couch and place it in the corner of the room or get some different fancy pillows that kids can arrange in different ways.
Put supplies like a dictionary, thesaurus, writing supplies, and blanket in the comfy area to read their book.

15. Monitor their reading They read bold headings. They read captions.
They look at the pictures instead of skipping them.

They self monitor their reading.
If something doesn’t sound right, then they go back and read it again.

They are able to learn the meanings of new words from the context.

16. Monitor their reading
While your students are reading during SSR time, walk around with a clipboard and ask kids if there were any parts of the book that they are reading that they got stuck on. Then ask them how they solved that problem.
Get the book How to Raise Non-fiction Reading Levels to help kids monitor their comprehension with non-fiction text.
Teach the importance of reading captions and bold headings as a mini lesson.

17. Enjoy reading out loud 1. Raise their hand to read out loud.
2.  Reads with expression.
3.  Follows the rules for punctuation.

18. Enjoy reading out loud
Remember to praise your students more than you correct them.
Use rubrics to rate people when they read, so that they can get specific feedback on how their reading sounds.
Go to to practice short poems with kids. Kids will enjoy reading these poems over and over again.
Talk about the importance of stopping properly for punctuation when you and your students are reading.
Use the symbols //, /, ↑, and * and the colors to teach kids how to read the punctuation.

19. Use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies
Use background knowledge to make sense about what they are reading
Make predictions before and after reading
Visualize what is happening in the story
Ask questions
Make connections
Evaluate which part of the story they like and don’t like

20. Use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies
Teach a child how to preview a book appropriately before reading it.
Teach students how to visualize and make mind movies when they are reading.
Teach your students the difference between a comment and a question.
Teach students how to make connections.
Use Venn Diagrams to compare different books.
Teach students how to evaluate books after they are done reading them and post them in the classroom for other students to see.

21. Stay Connected