Revisiting Silent Reading —
Abstract of

Chapter 14
Productive Sustained Reading in a Bilingual Class

Jo Worthy

Nancy Roser

Students from economically impoverished homes have far less access to print in their communities than do students from middle and high-income homes. The issue is more complicated for bilingual English language learners, who may need books in their native languages as well as linguistically accessible books in English. In this chapter, the authors report results of a Book Flood study designed to remove some of these obstacles for fifth-grade bilingual Latino students in a low-income community. The Book Flood included interesting and relevant materials, easy readers, books about Latinos and other multicultural texts, novels, and information texts at a range of difficulty levels. During a daily silent reading time, students read, responded, conferenced with the teacher, and shared with classmates. Findings demonstrate that students became active readers and seekers of books and made substantial improvement in achievement.

Worthy, J., & Roser, N. (2010). Productive Sustained Reading in a Bilingual Class. In E.H. Hiebert, & D. Reutzel (Eds.), Revisiting Silent Reading (pp. 241-257). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.