Build sustained personal reading time to 90 minutes. Provide time in school to build reading time to 90 minutes in one sitting. Every other Friday, build sustained reading time. Start by reading 20 minutes. In 2 weeks, try 40. In 2 more weeks, try 60. If students can not keep this pace, slow it down. At the end of each reading session, students make notes about what they noticed: if and when they got tired, whether reading the beginning or the end of a book held their attention the most, whether they needed to switch from hard to easy reads to sustain reading time, what they did to get back in the reading zone when they got tired, etc. In addition, students graph how many minutes they read each time to record progress.

In my state, the students take reading tests for 90 minutes. Therefore, we tried reading texts we liked so we might manage test materials as well. Also, we tried to find out about ourselves as readers so we could address our challenges. For example, I found out that I can usually read about 45 minutes pretty well, but then I get tired. I have to take a “mini vacation” to get back in the zone: look out the window, rub my ears, stretch my mouth, and/or shake my hands. It’s fun to see students share suggestions for staying engaged.