All of the strategies presented in this series so far have offered support for developing reading virtues alongside opening a child up to the wisdom in Great Books. This final post does that also, but with a more deliberate emphasis on the virtue side of the equation. Just as athletes use drills to master the fundamental skills of their sport, readers benefit from deliberately isolating reading virtues in order to improve them.

My two favorite exercises are repeated readings and cloze readings, both of which are research-based and complement classical education very nicely.

Repeated Readings

Classical educators have long held up the importance of reading the same material over and over again to develop a deeper understanding of the text. Many of us do that for pleasure when we enjoy a book or out of necessity when we don’t fully understand something we read. Inevitably, we gain more the second and third time around.

The same is true for repeated readings. The catch, though, is that it seems at first like students are just mindlessly working through a text.

Here is why.

Repeated readings consist of students speed-reading aloud a small selection of text, usually about 100 words, as quickly and as many times as they can in one minute. Once they’re done, students record how many words they read. Then, the teacher resets the timer and has the student do it again some number of times.

Almost always, students read more words with each reading because they become more comfortable with the text. This builds confidence, reading fluency, and—perhaps surprisingly—reading comprehension at the same time. I like having students write something at the end, such as a moral if we read one of Aesop’s fables.

Here is a repeated reading example. Notice that each word is numbered to make it easier for students to track their progress. It’s just as easy to pencil in the numbers, which is what I normally do.

There could be many different versions of managing repeated readings. Some teachers might complete this one-on-one with a student, but I find it works very well to have students do this in pairs. I manage the clock for the entire class, and pairs of students take turns reading. It gets very noisy when half the class is reading at the same time, but students enjoy the competitive spirit it elicits. Best of all, the “competition” is always against oneself as the student is trying to beat his own score.

Another variation I like is pairing students up from different grade levels. Older students take on a mentor-role, helping younger students pronounce words and break down meaning, while developing their own reading virtues in the process. Everyone benefits!

Match this exercise with a significant passage from a Great Book, and students are primed for a critical discussion or writing assignment.

Cloze Reading

Another research-based strategy for improving reading virtues is cloze reading, which sharpens critical reading by explicitly drawing on the faculties of logic.

It consists of a teacher selecting a passage of text. I find it most valuable when chosen from a Great Book that students are already reading. Then, the teacher “blanks out” key words. Students must read the passage and figure out what words are missing. The goal is not necessarily to find the precise word the author uses in the original text, but to figure out a word that would make sense in context. After an appropriate amount of time, the teacher reads the original passage to students, and the class collectively compares answers and assesses how well they did.

Cloze reading is like a puzzle in that it challenges our brains to piece words together in a logical way. Though the exercise does not explicitly require a student to re-read the passage, he will have to do so in order to figure out the missing words. It’s a more restful exercise than repeated readings, not least because it is completed silently. Nonetheless, it can be more stimulating because it is all about finding meaning. When I look around the classroom during a cloze reading, I feel like I can see students’ brains firing away.

Here is cloze reading example from The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White.

On a final note, repeated readings and cloze readings take very little time to complete, so they are relatively easy to work into the school week, and they have tremendous benefit. The key to serving the twin goals of wisdom and virtue is not only making sure the selections come from a Great Book, or perhaps a Classic Story, but also requiring students to articulate something valuable at the end.

And, I find it best when it feels fun for students. They know they’re developing reading virtues, but the exercises don’t feel tiresome. Instead, they feel energizing and empowering, and that is an essential prerequisite for building a love of reading.