Making Reading Personal by Identifying Purpose

Instruction often focuses on teaching students how to decipher and analyze an author’s purpose in the texts they read. While this work is prioritized in the classroom, students should also think about and name their own purpose for reading.

It is important to teach about the reader’s purpose just as explicitly and commonly as we do the author’s purpose. While considering the author’s purpose requires readers to exercise their analytical skills, knowing their own purpose for reading invites them to engage in metacognition and reflection, and ultimately build their own personal connection to reading.

INTRODUCING the READER’S PURPOSE TO STUDENTS

There are many reasons for reading, but I’ve found that introducing five specific purposes has helped students tackle the task of identifying theirs more effectively by making what can often seem abstract more concrete. The five purposes I introduced are outlined below, and each one includes a set of reflection questions that students can answer to help capture their thinking.

It is helpful to model the reflection questions for students to help them build the habit of thinking while reading.

When teaching students about the reader’s purpose, I like to outline all five ideas to show different reasons why people read. I ask students to think of their reading experiences and to name why they typically read, using the five purposes. Students reflect on which are more dominant in their reading processes than others. Then, we use this information to set reading goals.

Throughout the year, I bring students back to this idea by explicitly asking them to share their purpose when choosing an independent reading book or other text to read.

It may be helpful to create anchor charts for your classroom, or even mini-anchor charts for your classroom library, to help remind students about the different purposes and the related reflection questions they can use to ensure that they are getting what they want out of reading a specific text.

BREAKING DOWN THE 5 PURPOSES FOR READING

1. Learn. When a reader’s purpose is to learn, they are aware of the new information in front of them. They may have been actively seeking out new information on a specific topic, or it may be an unexpected result of the reading process. This purpose frames reading as a way to know more, both about specific topics and about different perspectives.

A reader may learn about a point of view that is different from their own and develop empathy toward a group or an idea. Readers may be aware of ideas and information prior to reading a text, but their understanding shifts because of the text.

Reflection questions

• What ideas keep repeating in the text that signal importance?
• What information is new to me?
• How has my understanding of a topic or perspective been impacted as a result of what I’ve learned from the text?

2. Wonder. When students are reading for the purpose of satisfying wonder, they are choosing to read in response to curiosity or confusion. They are driven by a desire to satisfy a question they have. Reading also allows for clarification of misunderstandings and misconceptions, and fuels deeper learning as students continue to build their understanding of the world.

By encouraging students to wonder, and to satisfy that wonder through reading, teachers empower their students to think deeply and seek out answers.

Reflection questions

• What am I curious about that is shared in the text?
• What am I confused about that is shared in the text?
• What do I not yet know about in the text that is causing curiosity, confusion, or both? What is my next step in addressing my curiosity or confusion?

3. Feel. When a reader’s purpose is to feel, they are seeking a text that will elicit an emotional reaction like joy, sadness, anger, enthusiasm, heartbreak, or hope. Both fiction and nonfiction books can evoke these feelings. If one is feeling hopeless, reading to inspire the feeling of hope may be soothing.

For some people, reading a book that elicits strong emotions, like sadness, can be comforting when going through a tough time, so that they know they are not alone. Reading to feel is personal and is a way to learn more about oneself.

Reflection questions

• What emotion does the text invoke in me?
• Why do I feel this way while reading?
• What do I bring to the text that causes me to react in a certain way?

4. Enjoy. When students are reading to enjoy, they aren’t concerned about learning something new or considering the specific emotional experience. Instead, they are just excited about a text and are reading it because they want to.

Teaching students to read for entertainment is a great way to help them find balance in their lives. It may help them deal with the constant pulls on their attention from things like technology.

Reflection questions

• What about this text keeps my attention?
• What is it about this text that I enjoy or find entertaining?
• What do I consider entertaining and enjoyable that I can look for in a text to read?

5. Connect. When a reader is reading to connect, they are looking beyond the specific text before them and instead looking more broadly at the reading experience. Readers may come together to discuss a book they have all read, offering each person a way to engage in conversation and build or maintain social relationships.

Book clubs and social media platforms provide ways for people to share their enthusiasm for and reflections about their reading experiences.

Reflection questions

• What about this text do I want to talk about with others?
• Who else might be interested in this text that I could make a recommendation to?
• What in-person and/or online groups can I gain insight and recommendations from?

As students learn to reflect on the different purposes of reading, they become more connected to the process and, ideally, learn to love all the different things reading can provide. Reading doesn’t become meaningful because we assign purpose. It becomes meaningful when readers claim one.