I have always been a little bit of a nerd. One example of that is I LOVE reading professional books in the summer time. The time off gives me time to un-wind and then begin thinking about the changes I want to make as an educator.
The book I am currently reading is called Disrupting Thinking by G. Kylene Beers and Robert E Probst. I chose this book after seeing it recommended by many teachers on social media. (That’s where I get my ideas for which professional books to read. Which, ironically, is exactly what this blog post is about!!)
The cover says “Why How We Read Matters” underneath the title. This book focuses on problems within reading instruction and what teachers can do to solve them. I am only a few chapters in, but I am already making notes of things I will do better in the future. I plan to document each of these in a blog series.
Here we go with #1…
I will do more to make reading FUN. I have already blogged about how I share my favorite books with my students during read aloud time. You can read that post here.
But, I need more. The first few chapters of Distrupting Thinking hit me hard. Especially the pages where students talked about why they read. One said “I read to find the evidence” or “I read to answer the questions.” These sound like things my students would say. I found myself screaming “Nooooo!” in my head.
These are the wrong reasons to be reading!
This is a shocking reminder of how our teaching influences students’ views on reading.
I want my students to say “I read to escape my reality and travel to places I could never visit in real life” or “I read to learn all about the solar system because I want to be a rocket scientist when I grow up and space exploration is the coolest thing ever.”
So, here is one thing I am going to do to start moving my students in this direction.
I will help my students see how fun reading can be.
This is very broad and will take more than one change in my classroom, but the first thing I am going to do is:
Allow my students time to share their favorite books with each other.
I mean, duh! Who do you turn to when you need a book to read on the beach, by the pool, at night before bedtime? Or, where do you find your newest professional books (see my answer at the top of the post). We turn to our friends. I want to help my students start doing the same thing.
Do you know that a student is more likely to finish a book they chose to read themselves than one that was chosen for them?
Active readers are proficient readers.
Our goal as teachers is to make proficient readers. Well, the first step is actually reading!
So, I went to my classroom and I created this bulletin board:
You know when you go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. the most popular books will be highlighted as popular searches or “trending” searches? That’s where the idea for the header came from.
I hung the header, then I printed lots of these speech bubbles. These are for students to write down their reason for recommending the book. Why do they think others would like it? What type of reader would enjoy this book? If I had older students, I would let them type these in Google Docs and then we would print them and hang them up.
This bulletin board is available in my TPT store for you to download and use.
In this download, you will receive:
- Now Trending Header: Two blackline masters to print the header. One is ready for you to print in your own color scheme. The other is sorted by colors with directions to make a rainbow header. Similar to the one I have pictured on my board.
- Printable Quotation Boxes: Students will use this to write their book recommendations. There are several types available.
- Digital Quotation Boxes: Older students can type & print their recommendations on the same quotation bubbles that you see pictured.
- Hashtags for Embellishment: These are not included in my photo, but I have added some printable hashtags such as: #awesome #readersgonnaread
A cute idea would be to take the students picture with their book, or they could do this themselves on their chromebooks or other devices.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
