Blog Post #3 Jeff Young

October Blog Post #3 Routman (2003), Ch. 3:  Share Your Reading Life: Jeff Young

Reggie Routman discusses in chapter three the need for teachers to make their reading life visible to their students in a way to motivate students to love reading as well.  One way Routman suggests this is to share with students the books you as the teacher are reading.  I am a history buff, especially when it comes to war biographies.  This would be a great thing for me to do to show the students that even though I am out of school, I still love to learn.  Another great tip from Routman is to share how we choose books.  The list Routman gives may give students ideas new ways to search out books to read.  Routman shares with teachers the need to teach students about the various book genres.  Encouraging students to try different genres may open up their world to new books they may never have read.  Routman shares with teachers how to teach students to keep a reading record.  I like the opinion Routman gives about parents signing off on reading logs.  She thinks that instead of making parents sign off on the records, that the responsibility should be for the student instead.  She says that students should be able to share their reading with their families in a “relaxed and enjoyable manner.”   Many students may not have parents that model reading with them, and so we may be the ones who students learn to love reading from.