• Reading bulletin boards help middle school students with reading strategies.stack of books image by ckalt from Fotolia.com
  
  Reading bulletin boards in the classroom can bring students and teachers together on the subject of reading. Bulletin boards are great tools for continuous updates for things happening throughout the school's state, the school and the students in the classroom. Creating an interactive reading board for students and teachers to use throughout the school year is an effective way for students to become more involved with reading.
  
  

Daily Reading Strategies

• Even though students have a grasp on language and how to interpret various types of text, posting daily reading strategies encourage students to continuously seek new reading methods as well as share those methods with fellow students. Daily reading strategies such as comprehension, vocabulary and writing prompts can act like daily math problems in math classes, for example. To attract attention to these strategies on a bulletin board, teachers can use large letters to display "comprehension strategy." A daily strategy should be brought to the attention of the students at some point during class time so that students may practice the exercise and ask any necessary questions about the strategy.
  
  When implementing daily reading strategies, encourage students to bring in appropriate reading material they find interesting. Allow 10 to 15 minutes during class once or twice a week for students to read material they are interested in. After students have read their chosen material, use the daily strategy to encourage students to answer questions about the text, to teach students how to question the text and ways to continue using reading strategies for all kinds of text.
  
  

Test Prompts

• A bulletin board designated for reading test prompts helps students practice for classroom and statewide reading exams. This type of board encourages students to work with another to study problems and different strategies to develop practice questions for one another. If a teacher finds relevant resource material online, for example, she can print these materials and post them on the bulletin board for students to flip through or to make copies for at-home reference. Teachers can use large letters to spell out "test prompts" on the board and attach folders to hold hand-out materials. A light colored board background can attract more students to look at the board and also make any posted material easy to read.
  
  

Student Posting

• Reading bulletin boards designated for student use create an outlet for students to freely share info during English or elective reading classes. A bulletin board designated for weekly, biweekly or monthly assignments encourages additional academic practices. For example, one week could be devoted to the history of 19th century European literature. Students can research a work of literature and post a fact about the book or the author on the bulletin board for other students to see. This encourages students to voluntarily post information for all types of purposes related to reading. If a student has tutored another student in the class, that student can post helpful info from tutoring sessions in the event other students have trouble with certain reading strategies. Students can ask to use half of a classroom bulletin board for this purpose and use different colors and texts than the teacher's board to distinguish the different posting boards.