Getting Teens Hooked on Books With First Chapter Fridays

For students at St. Marys Area Middle School in St. Marys, PA, Fridays are extra special. Since introducing First Chapter Fridays (FCF) in their English language arts classes five years ago, teachers Dana Smith and Beth Penn have noticed how much students look forward to it. On Friday mornings, students come in, grab an FCF sketchnote page, and settle in. Teachers read the first chapter of a new book aloud, which usually takes 10–15 minutes, while students doodle, fill in their sketchnotes, and relax. 

Even though it reinforces a variety of academic skills, students see it as a welcome break in the day. “ I remember middle school. Middle school’s horrible!” says Penn. “I wanted a place where I felt calm.” Her students agree. “Kids my age are really stressed,” says 8th-grader Harper. “First Chapter Friday really helps with that.”

Adopting the practice was a no-brainer for Smith and Penn. They are acutely aware of how little older kids are reading at home. “ They don’t have the time. And they don’t really have the attention span anymore,” says Penn. “ Everything that they do is in technology and it’s very quick. And if it doesn’t happen quickly, they’re not sure how to tackle that. Books take time and they take patience.” Smith also points out that it’s an easy way to expose kids in their rural, largely homogenous area to different cultures and genres.

The plethora of FCF resources online made it easy for St. Marys teachers to start putting it into practice. “It can be little to no prep at all,” says Penn. Full disclosure: she doesn’t always do the read-aloud herself. Some weeks, she plays one of the many FCF videos on YouTube of another teacher—or an author—reading. “ It’s a great opportunity for my students to hear someone else’s voice at the end of the week. If it’s a week where I’ve been lecturing a lot or doing a lot of talking, it’s a nice break for them and a nice break for me as well.” No sketchnotes? No problem.  ”A piece of lined paper or a piece of printer paper works just as well. They can write down what they liked, they can draw a picture and give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and it’s as simple as that.”

Smith points out that read-alouds tend to stop as students get older, even though there are clear benefits for all ages. “ Once students hit a certain age,” she says, “they are expected to be these like older kids that don’t need those things anymore, but they still are just kids. Hearing somebody read to you, there’s just something about it.”

“ I’ve never had a student tell me, ‘I’m too old for this,’” says Penn. “They really enjoy First Chapter Fridays, and I’ve heard more students come in my room and say, ‘Yes, it’s a First Chapter Friday!’” She strongly suggests teachers make sure there are copies of the book available—because every week, without fail, at least one of her students asks to keep reading. 

First Chapter Fridays is an activity that’s been adapted by many educators over the years, including Amanda Zieba of the Word Nerd Collaborative and Betsy Potash of Spark Creativity. Zieba has made a downloadable First Chapter Friday tracking sheet available for other educators to use, and there are many more FCF resources on her website. Many variations on sketchnote worksheets like the ones seen in the video can be found for free online. 

To find more strategies for elevating read-alouds in the older grades, check out Andrew Boryga’s article for Edutopia, “How to Make Read-Alouds Fun and Effective for All Ages.”