November Blog-Ferguson

November Blog

Chapter Reflection: Share your Reading Life

          This chapter discussed the importance of sharing your reading life with your students. This is so true! I would not have even thought about his until I began teaching and having “reading” conversations with my students.

          The chapter begins discussing how Routman begins her school year getting kids to think about reading for fun, or because they simply like a book. An activity I have done in the past is have the students label the paper “The last three things I read:”. I then tell them, that they have homework for their parents. They take this sheet home and get their parents to record the last three things they read. We bring them back and make a list. We talk about why our parents might have been reading those things. The activity then leads me into letting my students know about my passion for reading.

          The next section in the chapter gave an activity where the teacher bring in her books to share with the class. She goes through and simply talks about each book in her pile. I plan to do this activity with my class. I want to do this because I always start my reading conference off by asking them to show me a few books in  their basket and tell me why they have them. I have slowly realized that some continue to say, “I liked the cover so I picked it.” I want to model how to share our reading, and love for certain books.

          We all have those student who just simply don’t like reading. However we have to be the one to put the spark in their heart for reading. I believe classrooms libraries (or libraries in general are where they can happen. When I think about putting that spark in a child’s heart, I think about the movie Matilde. I love the scene when she goes to the library and finds books she can lay and read for hours. I smile each time I see her laying in that chair and giggling at the book. I want each of my students to find this passion for reading. If we have diverse libraries, and our students understand where our books are in our libraries they are more likely to find books to interest them.

          The next section discussed favorite authors and books. This school year we have done a lot of author studies and this has really helped our readers jump into reading this year. We have kids still searching the books by the authors we have read. We have kids re-reading, reading the pictures, etc. of books/authors we have read.

          The strategy we use in my classroom to pick books, is “IPICK” form the daily 5. I like how this chapter encourages using book reviews. I try to encourage my students to talk about books, make suggestions to a friend. The next thing I might try is have them find best-sellers on book store websites. I think this would be a neat way for students to find books that will interest them!

          Reading records seem to be the hardest for me. I don’t want kids to feel bogged down in recording the book they read. I just want them reading. After reading this section and idea I thought about was, having have their own padlet, and allow them to take a picture of the book, and then type the date. This would be a place they could look back and see what books they have read.

          Overall, I want to continue to demonstrate my love for reading to my students. I want each of them to find that passion and spark in their heart (just like Matilde).