Reading4Me is an important component of an extensive program at MLMC which encourages our students to read more habitually and to recognise the importance to their own learning of being a capable reader.
The Reading4Me program is conducted at the beginning of one lesson a day in Years 7-9; students are encouraged to bring in a book of their choosing to read. A survey of our student cohort during Semester 2 in 2022 found the following to be the most popular genres:
- Fiction: action/adventure, fantasy and mystery
- Non-fiction: war, history, true crime and sport.
The survey also revealed that 80% of our students enjoyed the book that they were reading and that 55% of our Year 7-9 students read at least once a week or more at home.
The overall goal of any independent reading program is to build habitual readers with conscious reading identities.
The more one reads, the:
- better one reads
- more knowledge of words and language one has
- more fluent one becomes as a reader
- easier it becomes to develop reading stamina, which is necessary to comprehend more complex texts
- more one learns about people and happenings in our world (prior knowledge).
Consider the following table of three separate readers:
| Student A | Student B | Student C |
|---|---|---|
Reads an average of 20 minutes per day |
Reads an average of 5 minutes per day |
Reads an average of 1 minute per day |
3600 minutes per school year |
900 minutes per school year |
180 minutes per school year |
1,800,000 words/year |
282,000 words/year |
8000 words/year |
Scores in the 90th percentile of standardised tests |
Scores in the 50th percentile of standardised tests |
Scores in the 10th percentile of standardised tests |
The Reading4Me sub-committee for 2023 has set the modest goal of increasing the percentage of students who read at home at least once or more a week from 55% to 65%. Considering the statistics presented above, the support of parents in our students reaching this goal would be enormously beneficial.
The Reading4Me sub-committee will continue to work with students, staff and parents to improve reading participation and, as a consequence, the academic results of MLMC students.
