The ability to sit and silently read a text is a skill that all students will need as they move through secondary education and into college. Similar to learning an active reading strategy, students must have multiple opportunities each day to practice reading silently. And like all explicit instruction, we must make it clear to our students why this skill is important to them.

As we assign silent reading tasks, provide a reading purpose, set a benchmark for the reading, and check in with them to see if the amount of time we have assigned was enough. Remind students that this work is important. Acknowledge that reading aloud can be fun, but more time must be spent learning how to comprehend ideas through silent, independent reading.

Although grade level and reading experience has a lot to do with how much time we ask our students to read silently, we should all begin by having our students read for short periods of time--no more than five minutes each time. Once they have read for a few minutes, have them talk (or write) about the reading.

Why do we want to start with short periods of time? In college, won't they have to read hundreds of pages per week on their own? Yes. College students are required do ten hours or more of silent reading per week. This is why we need to prepare students now. We need build our students' ability to stick with a text and focus on what it says. Over time, we should increase the amount of silent reading they do in class and at home.

The texts we assign do not have to be short. Students can learn to read silently with textbooks, novels, short stories, or newspaper articles. The length of the text does not matter. What matters is the time on task. That is, how much time our students are sitting silently reading a section of text.

To help students become more proficient at reading silently, consider performing a few "think alouds" while reading a text that has been assigned to them. During the first read, students listen to you think out loud about the text. This type of activity will help them better understand what a mature reader thinks about while reading silently. Once the think aloud is complete, have students read the text on their own. As a variation, you could have students perform think alouds in front of the class.

Silent reading can be a real bore if you don't have students periodically interacting with the text or each other. As part of the reading purpose, direct students to use an active reading strategy. Using a strategy like "Marking a Text" or "Writing in the Margins" will help student focus on the text while improving their comprehension. After a section of reading is complete, have them turn to their neighbors and talk about what they just read. This will keep the students interested and awake.

As a whole class, you could ask your students to make predictions, ask questions that require a bit of extended research, and or have students write brief summaries that accounts for the main ideas. All of these strategies and many more not mentioned here will help keep our students engaged in the reading.

When explicitly teaching this skill, make a connection to everyday life. You could say, "How crazy would the world be if everyone read out loud? People at the coffee shop would read the menu to those sitting and enjoying their coffee; customers at the grocery market would read ingredients and shopping lists to everyone nearby; and strangers on the bus would read the news to each other."

There is a greater purpose to silent reading, however, that goes beyond not wanting to irritate our neighbors. Silent reading helps us read faster. It helps us make faster connections between words and it gives us the silence we need to concentrate and process information. We also know that reading out loud is a performance. The reader worries more about pronunciation than he does the ideas in the text. Our students need to know this. Find a fun way to teach this lesson to your students.

While our students read silently, walk around the room and observe what they're doing. Some will read with great proficiency while others struggle to understand. Struggling readers sometimes look away from the text as the teacher walks by. The student might be ashamed or embarrassed. Perhaps he doesn't want his teacher knowing he's having trouble. We can also recognize a struggling reader by how fast the student reads or how she is reading. Some students will use a finger or pen to keep the word(s) they are reading in front of them.

These types of observations are invaluable to teachers. If we know who is struggling in our classes, we can do something about it. If you do not know how to help, speak with experts on your campus who could offer some suggestions.