MIDVALE, UT-I spoke with Ms. April Hamm about how students can improve their reading skills and why reading is so important for learning. She shined learn what teachers do to help students improve and what advice she had for people my age who want to get better at reading.
When I asked her why she decided to become a literacy teacher, she said, “I think reading is one of the most important things you can do, and it helps you with everything else.” She believes that reading is the basis for learning every subject in school. If you can read and understand what you’re reading, you can perform better in everything else as well.
Mrs. Hamm said one of the most important reading skills is sounding out words and using context clues to figure out what a word means. She said this helps students understand what they are reading instead of just guessing or skipping words they don’t know. I think this is really good advice because sometimes when I don’t know a word, I just skip it, but now I’ll try to use the words around it to figure it out.
To make reading more fun and interesting, Mrs. Hamm said she tries to get to know her students and find out what they like. “I try to find out what they’re interested in and make the activities more interesting,” she said. She explained that if a student likes sports or mystery stories, she tries to find books like that for them. I think that’s smart because reading is way easier when it’s something you actually care about.
When I asked how she helps students who don’t like reading, she said she’s still working on that. She tries to find books they might like and help them understand them better. She also said she used to have times when she couldn’t focus on reading, so she knows how that feels too. That made me feel better because even teachers struggle sometimes.
Her favorite book to teach is The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. She likes it because “it’s about civil rights, but told in a way that people can understand, and it’s also funny.” She said it’s a great book that teaches an important part of history but still keeps students interested. I haven’t read it yet, but now I kind of want to.
Mrs. Hamm also told me that her mom is the one who made her love reading when she was little.
“My mom always made sure we had books,” she said. “She would take us to garage sales and the library. I feel really lucky we always had books at home.” I think that’s nice because it shows how family can help make reading something special instead of just homework.
At the end of the interview, I asked what advice she would give to students who want to get better at reading. She said, “Read everything — labels, articles, anything that interests you. Use audiobooks or listen while you read.”
Mrs. Ham’s advice is simple but really true: the more you read, the better you get. Reading can help you in every part of your life, not just in English class. You just have to find books you like and keep reading more and more.
