254: Dusting Off an Old Practice to Make Reading Fun Again

This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 254 of the Cult of Pedigogy podcast. In this episode, we will be dusting off an old classroom practice to make reading fun again. [Music] I have a question for you. When was the last time you sat in a chair or on a couch and read a book? Like actually read a book. Not an article or a social media post, but a book. And yes, in this case, Kindle and other ebooks count. For myself, those moments are getting farther and farther apart. It's not for lack of desire. I have dozens of books I've bought fully intending to read them, and I've actually started most of these. But there are just too many other distractions that pull me away. Even when I do manage to sit down and read, I often find myself coming across something in the book that I want to look up. And even though I swear to myself that I will just use my phone to look up this one thing, I almost always break that promise and end up going down some sort of rabbit hole. And then I remember that I need to move a load of laundry into the dryer. And then I decide to make a quick snack and answer a text real fast. And before you know it, no more book. I used to be a pretty avid reader. I grew up in a family of readers. Books were always a major consideration anytime I moved. I was an English teacher for Pete's sake. But in the last 5 to 10 years, it has taken me longer and longer to finish a book than it ever did. Do I think this is a bad thing? I do. Yes, I am still technically reading sentences all the time on the internet, but very little of that reading is long form content. Honestly, I can't even remember the last time I read an entire article online. So, I can't pretend that the internet-based reading I do is of the same quality as the reading I used to do in books or even in magazines because it's not. And my attention span, garbage. I've trained it to only digest information in small bites, and I don't like it. It's a problem I definitely want to work on. So, when my friend Dan Tracaro started talking to me about the silent reading practice he did with his 9th grade students, it got my attention. If you heard my conversation with Dan on episode 221, when he talked about his photography project, taking portraits of his colleagues, you're already somewhat familiar with his thoughtful, holistic approach to his work. on his platform, The Zen Teacher, and his book by the same name, Dan helps teachers create focus, simplicity, and tranquility by encouraging a more zen inspired, mindful approach in the classroom. So, naturally, he wanted to share his own love of reading with students in a way that felt easy and simple, not forced. I'm going to give away the ending. We're talking about a pretty basic silent reading program. 10 minutes per class period, no exciting tech, no innovative grading strategies. Dan would agree there's nothing new to see here. But the reason he and I both think this is a good time to dust this one off and share it here is because of the environment we're living in right now. With social media and non-stop digital content filling up every possible second of our days, with mounting concerns about the potential for AI to take over, well, everything, and with anxiety and mental health struggles reaching epic proportions, bringing back the classic, quiet, simple practice of daily silent reading might be just what we need. In this episode and in a guest post over on Cult of Pedigogy, Dan describes how he implements this practice, some of the surprising things his students say about it, and how it has helped many of them become lifelong readers. Before we get started, I'd like to thank Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. I've been a big fan of Alpaca for a while now, not just because of what they're building, but because of how they're helping schools build stronger culture, one small step at a time. You know those long, clunky staff surveys that are kind of a pain to fill out? Yeah, this isn't that. Alpaca is doing something different. Their semantic pulse surveys are quick two-minute check-ins where teachers tap words that describe how they're feeling, like joyful, exhausted, valued, or stretched thin. No numbers, no sliding scales, just real honest teacher voice coming through on a regular basis. It's designed for teachers, but school leaders get clear, actionable insights they can actually use to figure out where support is needed and where their team is thriving. And once you're listening, Alpaca makes it easy to take action. Their entire resource library with hundreds of readytouse tools for recognition, celebration, and connection is completely free and designed to help you turn insight into impact right away. It's one simple school culture tool. Delightful, insightful, supportive, and built to make a real difference. Go to getalpaca.com/pedigogy. That's g a l p a ca.com/pedigogy and get 15% off just for cult of pedigogy listeners. Support also comes from the schoolme podcast. Are you looking for inspiration to elevate your teaching? The School Me podcast delivers practical solutions for today's classroom challenges. Whether you're a firstear teacher or a veteran educator, each episode brings valuable insights directly to you from fellow colleagues across the country. Every month, host Natika Samuels sits down with educators who share their classroom tested strategies and professional wisdom. From lesson planning techniques to work life balance tips, SchoolMe covers what matters most to educators right now. Join thousands of educators who listen to Schoolme as part of their professional development regimen. Learn more at nea.org/schoolme. Now, here's my conversation with Dan Trarico about how he implemented a silent reading practice in his classroom. Hey, Dan. Hi. Hi. Welcome back. This is Dan's second time on the podcast. He did that amazing teacher portrait project. Um, and we I mean you and I have batted back and forth a bunch of different possible topics, but this is one that we landed on right now. Uh, so before we get into what we're going to talk about, just tell me a little bit about um what you do in the world of education. Sure. Uh, my name is Dan Trikarico. I've been teaching English at West Hills High School for 32 years. I've loved every minute of it. Um I a couple things that are pretty interesting I think about being at that school is one um I've been in the same classroom for 32 years. Um which never happens. And then um I loved the school. I knew it was going to be a special school and when I was young and uh looking for a job they were building the school and they built that uh building, the English building and they put me in that room and I'm the only teacher who's ever taught in that room. Oh my gosh. So that's like my home. Yeah, it's my home and um I think the plan is to retire next year. I almost said graduate, but um to retire next year and I'm looking forward to that, but also it'll be bittersweet. Yeah. And you have you have written a couple of books that are tell tell me a little bit about the books that you've written because we haven't really done anything that relates to those yet. No, we haven't. Um yeah, you know, the funny thing is is is that in around 2014, 2013, kind of in there, I was just facing massive burnout in education. I'm sure like a lot of teachers, it was just really I had 10 years to go and I'm like, gosh, how am I going to get through this and everything and um so I kind of looked at some different things that I knew would reduce stress and improve my self-care. and writing is my therapy and and you know I so I wrote um a book called The Zen Teacher Creating Focus, Simplicity and Tranquility in the Classroom. Um I was fortunate enough to get it published and now one of the greatest joys of my life are the messages I get from other teachers saying that it helped them. And then I wrote a second book called Sanctuaries and then I wrote a book on writing called Write Here and Now W I T which is how to teach writing and do your own writing through the lens of mindfulness. And it's just been a great path in in the twilight of my career, as I say. I I think we we definitely need to have you come back and and learn more from you about some of those other things because I've been aware of those books, but we've never really drilled down on anything. So, we keep coming up with other things to talk about. So, we're going to be talking today about independent silent reading, which I remember being in high school when they implemented. I think they called it SSR then. And um and so we you're wanting to maybe like do a little bit of like a refresh on this. So, you know, it's 2025. This has been around for a while. And I I also like you want to immediately address the concerns of people who are going to be like, "What's why this isn't a new thing. Why are you talking about this now? Yeah. So, how did you come to seeing what the way that you do independent silent reading with your high school students? This is specifically you do this with ninth graders. Ninth graders. Exactly. And so some of the approaches that you've taken to it have really been you've pretty noteworthy. So, how did you start doing it and and what was the sort of um beginning of the process for you? what got you to start doing in the first place? Well, I think one important distinction to make is that you're absolutely right. It's not that independent silent reading is new or different, but the world is different. And so, how it fits into that is what I was focusing on, I think, a little bit. And it goes all the way back to when I started at uh West Hills. We had something we called the outside reading program. We all knew it was important for students to have choice and for them to get excited about reading and read something they loved. So, um, we had a 10-minute, uh, silent reading period at the beginning of every class, um, with all the students, uh, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. And then they would do what we called, I'm using air quotes here for the listeners at home, um, book talks, where they would come up and they had to read a certain number of pages every grading period. But what we learned is a couple things. Um, over the years, we learned that that process kind of was a little bit of a grade inflator. um that that we didn't really want. And that also the kids felt the pressure so much that they started lying about the books that they were reading. Their friends would say, "Tell me about the book you read, you know, and then I'm just going to go up and do the book talk." And so those were problems that we didn't really didn't find a way to overcome. So we just stopped doing it. So then, you know, fast forward, I don't know, a decade and a half or something, you know, and I was like, "Okay, the world is very different. audio books, yeah, that's reading. A reading online, yeah, that's reading. But, you know, when you think about traditional hard copy books in the hand reading, very few people are doing it. Um, I it's kind of become p in some ways to do that. There are some hardcore readers, and I think we're probably two of them. But um I I've even noticed and and this is 100% transparency and I don't think I mentioned this in the post. I used to be able to sit in a a chair and read for hours um uninterrupted. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore, Jen, because I'm the same. Yeah. Yeah. It's baffling to me. Yeah. And and sometimes if I'm reading something that's interesting, knowing that I can Google something that I'm reading about, it's like I want to have more tabs open all the time. And also just the stamina in general is just not there anymore. And it's it's troubling for sure. It is troubling. And that's what I meant by the world is different. And I because I noticed it myself. So I kind of looked around and I was like, you know, uh and the kids weren't not only not reading, but not reading as well, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I was like, I've got to do something here. And so at that time it was kind of revolutionary to do silent reading again because I did it in my high school, too. And you know what they did then was they took a whole period Mondays and I loved it because I was a reader, you know. And now when I think back to the kids who maybe weren't readers, I thought, "Oh my goodness, how torturous must that have been for them to sit there for 53 minutes just staring at the pages of a book that they weren't reading or whatever, you know?" And so I thought, "Okay, well, I said, I'm going to reimplement the 10 minutes of silent reading, but I know that it's a great inflator and I know that they're going to lie about the books." And so I said, "Okay, look, it's not I don't want it attached to a grade, you know, I want to light a fire into them. I want to reignite in some of them the love of reading, the fun of reading, the joy of reading, all of that. That was my goal. Very intuitive. I wasn't worried about Lexile scores. I wasn't worried about, you know, data and everything like that. So I always say that what I'm doing right now in the classroom and pretty much in all the areas is either enlightenment or malpractice. I'm not sure. you know, it's one or the other. Um, but but I I feel intuitively this is the right way to go. It's going to get them excited about reading. And so when I say it's not attached, and I explained this in the post, but when it's not attached to reading, I mean, I say, okay, at the beginning of the week, everybody has a 20 out of 20. You've got the A. Don't have to worry about it. Take the take the grade out of your mind, right? It's not about that. All you have to do is sit there and read. It's when you aren't reading, when you're reaching in your backpack, talking with your neighbor, staring at the ceiling, couple points come off. I just have the grade book next to me. And I try I can't do this all the time, but I try to model it, too. And read while they're reading, too. Of course, you know, that's always a good thing to do. Um, if I see somebody's talking or I see they're digging in their backpack, I'll just, you know, it goes from 20 to 18, 18 to 16, you know, but most people keep the 20 out of 20. And um and so that's kind of how it started. And oddly enough uh you know I mean there I from various sources I got some a little bit of push back of oh you're wasting time. Oh you're you're you know that's instructional time you could be using them I'm like yeah but you don't understand all you know like in all the subjects success is predicated on being a solid reader and um and so I didn't see it as a a waste of time at all. Right. you um one of the things that you talked about in the post too was that you the difference between asking for one 50-minute class period versus f 10 minutes across which is the exact same time 10 minutes per day but that that was an easier yes for your admin. Yeah. You know and I get it. I mean nobody wants to think that you're taking an entire class period to I mean because again some of the kids are just going to stare at their books. I get that. And you know, uh, speaking of the Zen teacher, I just had to let that go. I just had to say, you know what, it is what it is and it's going to that's what's going to happen in some cases. But here here's what I I I said in the post that I I really like because it's really my philosophy about this is if you're a reader, you're not the person I'm trying to get. If you're if you hate reading, you're not the person I'm trying to get. I'm trying to get the person in the middle who just doesn't take the time in their busy life in this world we live in to sit down and read anything for an extended period of time who might say, "Oh, this was easier than I thought or I liked this more than I thought." Or, "Oh, I really like this author." You know, those are those were my people. Those were the people I was after. And and I'm going to be vain here and say I get those people every year that who tell me that. And that's a win to me. When you say you get those people, you mean you actually you convert them. I convert them. That sounds so, you know, manipulative, and I don't mean it that way, but, you know, so persuasive, we'll say, but yeah, you know, it's it's not though. You're you're creating an environment where they can discover a love for reading, which is you said it perfectly. It's not a trick. Yeah. You're just That's exactly it. And the world is not set up for that anymore. There are so many other attractive distractions that you really do nowadays have to commit to the time and time everything else. Yeah. There's no other way around it. You have to commit to the time and that was just said by a teacher who's addicted to Tik Tok. So, you know, I get it. Yes. Yes. There's a million things out there. You have the rule is that that uh uh they have to feet on the floor was what I saw in there, which I thought as someone with short legs, I immediately thought that would be hard for me. I I'm a tucker of the legs because they don't reach the floor. No, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. No, I said in a chair. I have three ironclad rules. Absolute silence because some people need silence to read. Feet on the floor. I just meant sit in your seat. Like I said, I'm I'm a hippie at heart and I would love to have bean bags and couches and have you lounge around and you know, but with 36 kids in the class, that's just not possible. And then was it absolute silence, feet on the floor, and eyes on the page, you know, and there has to it has to be an actual physical thing that you you've eliminated books, no like app on the phone. Yeah. Why that's important to you. It should be okay. It should be okay to say read on your phone, read on an iPad, whatever. Whatever. Read on your Chromebook. I don't care except that they don't except that they go over to YouTube. They go over to you know what what used to be called Twitter. They go over to what you know what you know whatever they just they play games you know. So I said you know this just isn't working. It has to be a hard copy. Now it can be a graphic novel. It can be a magazine. It can be a book. It can be whatever you want to bring in. You just better have something. Oh, that's the other reason. I didn't put this in the post, but that's the other way they can lose points is if it's 10 minutes and you're reading and then you're just sitting there. I go, "Where's your book?" And they go, "Oh, I finished I finished the book or I finished the mag." They have to have enough to read. And I when we I take them to the also didn't say this in the all the things I'm thinking I should have put in the book. We we went to the library every grading period just to pick silent reading books. And the librarian was thrilled. She says, "Nobody does that anymore." Wow. and she could see how they were getting excited and enthused and trading books and all of these kinds of things and that just does my heart good. I mean, that's what it was all about. Yeah, that was the whole point. Do they do they So, a couple logistical questions. Do do they have the option of just leaving the book in your room? No, I don't think there's enough space. Nobody's ever asked that. Okay, that's interesting because I'm just I'm trying to How and then how do you handle it if they forget their book? Oh. Um, if I can tell whose seat it was, I just put it up front and give it to them the next day. Oh, no. No. I mean, if they forget to bring it. Oh, then they're going to lose some points or Well, no, but then what they'll do is and I and frankly, I used to do this in high school, too, is go to a friend. I need a book. I need a book right now. What What do you have? You know, and then you you kind of fake it for that day and then you bring the book that you're into the next day and then you're good. You know, but you don't keep any books in the room that they can grab and use. Oh. Oh. Uh gosh, you're you're help making me reflect over the many years that I've done this now. Um I do have I'm gonna confess this on national podcast here Jim. Um I have a couple bookcases in the classroom and but there are a lot of my books too and sometimes they'll say, "Mr. T, can I have a book and say, okay, I go in the bookcase, they'll take one. I go, no, not that one. You can't read that one because that's my book and there's some mature themes in there and that that's just where I keep it, you know, and you can't read that. You got to pick another one. So they pick another one. Okay, that one. Yeah. Okay. But it sounds like you don't This isn't that big of a problem, though. No. No. They they usually have a book every now and I mean, everybody forgets things sometimes, you know? Right. And I get that. So So let's go back then to this this point that you made before about the conversion that you you see results every year with absolutely a good chunk of students. And how do you get that information? Is it comments that they make? Is it a different attitude that they take about the reading time? Where are you seeing all that? Well, it's all of the above really. I mean, I do um after we're in it, a grading period or so, maybe six to eight weeks, I'll give them a survey. I say, you know, and some of the results are in the post about, you know, what was your favorite part? What was your least favorite part? You know, uh what's working for you? What have you noticed about your reading? And a lot of the students say, I notice I'm reading more. I'm reading faster. my favorite I'm reading at home. Um they want to finish a book. They want they get into an author, whatever it is. Um I'm I'm um I'm learning more words. Uh you know, my my vocabulary is better. All of that kind of stuff. And I'm just thrilled with that. And sometimes, like you and I talked about in email, uh I will have them make book recommendations to each other. You know, I've done that a few times. That's that's fun. Um you know, so I it's you know how teaching is. It's I always go I want to do more with this and then life goes on and there's so much curriculum to cover and you don't always get to it but because it is kind of my little pet project. It is kind of my little thing that you know um is I do with the ninth graders because I felt that the ninth grade was such a foundational part of of their entrance into high school and that we need to set some of those foundational skills then so that they have them again for not only English but for all of the subjects where if they are reading just a little bit better and just a little bit more all of the other subjects are going to go better for them I think. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you know, the number of adults that I meet, it's shockingly who will tell me that they they think they've probably only ever read maybe one or two actual full books in their life. Yes. You know, and some of this is because school never required it. But I do think that even when school requires it, it can they can cheat their way through that. They can, you know, because it's not something that they've developed a pleasure for. So that's the key. Yes. And that's what you're trying to do. I am I am no stranger to Cliff's notes, right? I went to college, right? But um but yeah, what I wanted was a a love, a joy, a fire, an enthusiasm for reading because it is therapeutical. It it can it can just make you feel better. It can transport you to other worlds. I mean, I'm preaching to the choir. Everybody knows the benefits of reading and nobody does it. And like you said, we're not set up for it. Now you got me fired up. The um the culture, it's a subversive thing to do in this culture to sit down and be still and read. And by the way, that was the other thing is that in those surveys, they reported how much they loved the quiet time to start the 10 minutes of class so they could just get their brain on straight and be ready to go. And as somebody who wrote a book called The Zen Teacher, you would have thought I would have expected that. And I totally didn't see that coming and I was just over the moon. I was thrilled that that was their experience. What a great side benefit. It's the nervous system regulator that Oh, perfect. Yes. Exactly. Like I mean and and kids in 2025 rarely have that opportunity. They have to make it themselves or they have to have a caring wise adult to say listen. Yeah. And and it sounds like your approach also is different from the way I think silent reading has been handled in some classrooms across history, which is just sit down, be quiet, and you better read. And there is no like this is really good for you. There's so much a rule or or a directive. Yeah. And so when you do that, you're automatically going to have a lot of students who want to naturally just resist it. Yes. and find a way around it and fake read, which is a, you know, term I remember hearing Pil Rip use years and years ago, which is, yeah, just fake reading. And I'm sure you still do have that. You know, you don't convert everybody. You don't convert everybody. Um, and so yeah, like you know, what have you had any successes with some of those kids who were pretty reluctant at first, who did turn around and like what did you do to make that happen? What did I do to to convert them to Yeah. to get some of those that were really kind of resisting you at first. I I think probably one of the biggest things is and and again all teachers know this and I'm sure they all do it but it's modeling the enthusiasm yourself saying oh I read this really good book the other day or or the other side which I think is super important that I don't think teachers do is going I really struggled with this book it was really boring or it was hard or I didn't understand what the writer was saying and because teachers don't want to look like they don't get it that you they're supposed to be the experts and all of that, but I'm totally like, "Oh, this book was stupid, you know, or whatever." I feel like just across the board society, people don't understand so how important it is sometimes to be transparent about things that aren't going well and things, you know, I think people really have this feeling like they have to only present their best side and their best everything. Social media, a lot of times that just that just makes everybody else feel like, well, what's wrong with me? Things. Yeah. And when you say, "Yeah, this is actually really kind of hard." You're going to have some books that just don't work for you. And it's okay. You can you can stop and pick something else until you find something that really works. There's so many books out there. Yeah. There's more than you will ever even come come close to reading. So, go find another one. I always tell them, life is too short to read bad books. Yeah. You know, I and I remember I won't I won't say the author is like one of the most popular authors in the world. And I remember when I fi I said no, I've got to finish this book because you're supposed to finish books and it was super duper boring and I wanted to pitch it across the room. But when I finished it, I was like, I'm never doing that again. If if I get into one and I don't like it, I'm just going to stop and that's okay. And I'll tell you this is um I I'll give you the yin and yang of this. There are a lot of ways where, you know, like my teaching skills uh lack, but one of the places where I think I'm really good, one of the gifts I think I bring to the table is that idea, as you were hinting at of lowering the barrier of judgment and just saying, hey, I'm just saying try this, you know, and it goes how it goes. You don't have to be perfect at it. I'm not perfect at it. And when you create that environment, like you said, it's just creating the conditions, which every good teacher knows. You just create the conditions for what you want to have happen to let it happen, but not say, "Oh, this has to happen. You know, you have to read all this and you will like it." You know, that never works. That never works, right? No, it really doesn't ever. And yet there are still so many people still keep trying. Yes. Um, anything else that you want people to know about this approach in terms of like if somebody's thinking about getting started and they're not sure, anything you might want to say to convince them or Well, I think 10 minutes is a reasonable time. Start small. You know, know that it may not go perfectly like any other lesson that you do. Some lessons, you know, just sing from the very first moment. Others crash and burn. And that's just teaching. I thought when my lessons crashed and burned, it was just me being a poor teacher. But just that's how that's the job, you know. So, yeah, start small. Uh, you know, be aware of of your own, you know, it boy, teaching takes self-reflection, I'll tell you that. And reflect on your own reading practice. What works for you? What doesn't work for you? What do you love about reading? What fires you up? And then share that. If we can share ourselves, um, shameless plug here, that's what the new book is about. If we can share who we are fundamentally as human beings with the students, they respond to that and whe whether it is like hey this is going really well or no this is not going really well either way. Right. So before we wrap up uh I want to tell you that I have always for as long as I've done this podcast I've always had two separate parallel goals with this podcast. One is to share good practices that work. But then also, you know, when I when I was a teacher, the teachers lounge was mostly a toxic place for me to be most of the time. And the whole reason I started this website was to gather up more people who had what I felt was a better outlook on teaching and a better attitude toward it so that they could encourage each other and influence each other. So my other reason for inviting people on to the podcast is when I feel like they just have a vibe that I want to spread their attitude, their way of talking about teaching is so very different from some of the people that I worked with who I thought just absolutely hated the job. And you are such a good example of that kind of person. And so it's not just that this is a this is a good practice for people to um implement, but I just I want more teachers, particularly people that are just getting into the profession to understand that a a person can have your kind of an attitude about the job and at 32 years. Yes. But that's the kind of wisdom to pass down because some people at 32 years are just like, I can't wait to get out of here and these kids today and and I just I just want less of that and more of what you're what you're serving up over there in California. Yeah, it's all the California vibe. That's it. Well, no, I'll tell you um that you you have absolutely in improved my street cred because there is a teacher in my department who listens to your podcast religiously and was so impressed that I was on it. So, and and you you have created a teachers lounge for the world. I hope so. I hope so. Oh, and I get that feeling a lot when I'm talking to people and listening to them and I'm just thinking how great if all of of all of the people that have been on my podcast could be teaching together in one school. Oh my gosh. Can you just imagine like the way those kids would grow? Absolutely. It would just be amazing. But until then, we'll do it this way. That's fine. Let let people know where they can find you online. Where's the best place to find you online? Um well, my website is thezentteer.com. That's always a good place. Um uh I guess uh one thing I did recently is I started a new Substack and um um so you can try to find me there. I don't know exactly how to find me there at this point, but um uh I'm on Instagram. I I'm really trying to kick up my Instagram game. Uh Zen Teacher. When I signed up for that, the Zen Teacher was taken, I guess. Okay. So um yeah, those are probably the three big places. Substack, my website, and but if you go to my website, don't sign up for the email list because that's what I moved over to Substack and we haven't changed the page yet. I'll tell you what, I will I will get from you once we're done. You can email me the uh the link to get to your Substack and then I can add that to like the show notes. That would be awesome. Thank you. That's my teachers lounge. Hey, I started my own too, funnily enough, right around January of this year. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to have another platform somewhere just in case mine just suddenly disappears magically. Yeah, I hear you. Yes. Um, okay. Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks for letting me be here. To read Dan's guest post, visit cult of pedigogy.com, click podcast, and choose episode 254. To get a regular email from me about my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses, speaking services, and products, sign up for my mailing list at cultpedigogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.