Getting Students Engaged in Reading - Liz

Every year I try to improve my skills and strategies for getting all of my students engaged in reading. One of the things I've always done is to continue adding more books to my classroom library. In the past I had felt a bit defeated, as I'd spend time and money to add books that students weren't reading. I realized then, that when I stuck the books in the library without saying anything, the kids wouldn't even know they were there! Toward the end of last year, and continuing into this year, every time I got new books, I'd make a big announcement about them and hand them out to any students who wanted to read them right then and there. I also have a book bin in the library marked "new arrivals".  This year, I've been trying to order and find books for my kiddos who are more reluctant readers. When I make my new book announcements, I often say, "I got this one with so-and-so in mind because he/she likes baseball" or something like that. Those kiddos light right up and grab the books.  I also get a read of which books and series are most popular with my classes, and seek those out (Dogman and any other graphic novels are especially popular for my students this year!), so that they're excited when these popular books are added to our library. The other way I have found that really engages students is read-alouds. When they're really into a book I'm reading to the whole class, I can find opportunities to point them toward other books like our read aloud, or by the same author.  I think this will be an ongoing challenge for me, so I'm really looking forward to reading what everyone else does to engage their students in reading!

Getting Children Engaged with Reading - Steve

This post has stirred up so many memories for me. I can remember when I began teaching and was still grappling with the idea of using choice reads in my classroom. The school where I was originally employed had a long history of teaching whole class novels to all students at the high school level. Since I was new to the district, I spent the first few semesters following the same "protocol" and finding out that students were less engaged than I would have hoped. After talking with the middle school teacher, who was just starting to learn about the Calkins' units, I was moved with the idea that my students could read numerous texts throughout the year. Since I was still nervous about how to juggle so many texts, I started off by offering my students choice in their class reads. I remember pulling out six texts that I truly enjoyed as a learner. As I put them on the desks, my students seemed shocked about what was happening. I spent that class period "selling" each book to my students. I then asked them to vote on their favorite choice as they left my classroom. There were plenty of smiles that day.

This was the moment when I found out that reading can be choice driven. Yes, classic texts have a place, but my students needed to become voracious readers of texts in general. Since choice reads are such an essential aspect of each class I now teach, this seems like such a small feat. However, it meant a great deal at the time. 

Lindy -- Recycled for everyone

When I taught third grade the kids would get very excited when the Scholastic Book Club box would arrive. It became clear that the contents were not equally shared since not everyone ordered each month. Some kids spent a lot and some never got any. I got an idea that if a box arrived that was for the whole class and everyone had choice it might be just as exciting. I had a lot of books from my childhood and bonus points that had never been seen so I decided to have a mystery box arrive at school for the class. It was filled with more books than kids. When it arrived I acted very surprised and read a letter that was enclosed asking for kids to please love and read these books. The sender also asked if they would review them and return the postcards in each book so she would know if they were good books for third graders. (I had the postcards addressed to my mom so they wouldn't know I was behind this.) I wasn't sure if this would work but the kids decided every book in the box needed to be read, even the easy ones! Kids shopped and chose books. Some of my lower readers recognized books from second grade and I steered them in that direction so they'd be successful saying that everything needed to be read. Kids talked about the books and shared their progress as they prepared for their postcard writing. I ended up doing this two more times and each time they felt it was a job they had to do so that lady would get her reviews and know what books were o.k. for third graders!

If I was doing this now I think I may create a review site that they could post their review on so we could eliminate the postcard part. This would also be a little up-to-date in the social media world! Maybe they could just Tweet under a particular hashtag that the "lady" sent.

Getting Children Engaged with Reading

Individually we have many tricks in our bag for engaging children. This is your opportunity to share something you have tried with success that got a student or students excited about reading. Think about an individual or something you did with a class that changed attitudes about reading. If it is something a teacher did that changed your attitude and you know it was that particular moment that changed you that would be fine as well.

Karie as a reader

I have tried to remember learning to read, but I only have a few hazy images. I do not remember reading groups at school at all.  I vaguely remember sitting in rows and Ms. Jackson's encouraging words as I did my work. I do know that learning to read came easily to me. My strongest early memories aren't from school but are from home and reading independently. I remember reading books to my new baby brother. I remember loving Ramona Quimby / Beverly Cleary books. I was an avid reader from a young age and have always, to this day, loved series books. The longer the better! When I find a character / author / story I like, I hate to put the book down as I like to absorb myself in the story for as long as possible. I remember staying up reading as long as I could at night, feeling connected to Ramona in all of her awkwardness and foibles. My older brother was also an avid reader and I would impatiently wait for him to finish a book so that I could read it too. 

As I currently work with struggling readers in grades K-6, I am always trying to connect students with books that they enjoy and bring out some natural enthusiasm for reading. So often struggling readers just don't enjoy reading because it is laborious and just hard. The more excited they are about doing something, the more they will do it!

Faulkner as an 8th grade reader

When I was in 8th grade, I was diving into texts that would purposefully challenge me.  I had been reading a couple grades above level for years, and I felt like I needed to really push myself.  One way I did this was by reading poetry.  My grandparents had an old poetry anthology in their basement. I don't remember what it was called, but I remember it being very old and having a frayed spine.  The poems' meanings were hard for me to grasp, as you might imagine when reading Keats or Whitman independently at 13.  When I thought I understood a line or stanza, or I just thought it sounded beautiful, I copied it down into a notebook.

Recording favorite lines sparked my reading for another reason at this age.  I was learning  how reading (and writing) could be healing for me.  Not only was I finding solace in the hardships of characters, but I was empathizing with their struggles, and then looking to find the perfect words to recreate emotions and senses.  My heart broke when Dallas Winston saw no good in the world of The Outsiders.  I felt Melinda's pressure when she tried to Speak through broken lips.  What I think meant the most to me was that all my work was motivating me to read simply for the love (and the healing) of reading.  

Darby Hiebert as a 5th grade reader...

As a fifth grader, I was already an avid reader. I read everything and anything I could get my hands on: The Little House on the Prairie series, Judy Blume, Swiss Family Robinson, The Hobbit, etc...

My biggest memory was that in 5th grade, my parents send me to England to stay with friends and go to school for six weeks. I left on April 12th and returned May 30th. While there I went to school with the older of the two girls of the family with whom I was staying. Her name was Lorna. (Please know that this family I was staying with were friends of my parents when they were all first married, and they often joked about trading children later on. The English couple decided they wanted to raise their children English, so when the time came, they moved back) Lorna's teacher, Mrs. Cook, often had me read outloud to her; Heidi was her favorite. I thought it a bit silly at the time, but I loved the story!

One of the day trips that my English family took me on was to some local hills where we hiked and picnicked, and climbed a big tree with a branch on which we bounced up and down. It turns out that these hills, or downs as they were called, were the very downs that inspired Richard Adams to write Watershipdown. (I don't recall seeing any rabbits, but whatever!) As a parting gift, I was given a copy of the book, and in the front, the map was marked with the different places we had hiked, picnicked, and bounced, even the farm where we had ridden the gate open to let cars through. This is still one of my favorite books, and I have so many clear pictures in my mind of the hills, the farm, and the wood where the story takes place.

Amelia as a 4th grade reader... and then some

As a fourth grader, I do not remember specifically any books I read.  I find this strange because I remember reading The Boxcar Children in third grade. In fifth grade I remember reading The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss.  My fourth grade teacher (who I happen to have run into this past weekend) read Sideways Stories from Wayside School as a read aloud.  This is memorable to me because in that book, each chapter is about a different student.  She put a name tag on our desk of one of the students in the book.  We were all excited to find out who the chapter was each day and awaited our turn.  While I do not remember the name she gave me, I know if I read the book again I would be able to figure it out.  Thinking back on myself as a reader I had a lot of ups and downs.  Now I absolutely love reading but there was a time from 6^th to 10^th grade that I really disliked reading.  I remember not having a choice in what I was able to read in school at that time.  I did the bare minimum for reading during those school years and remember not reading a single book assigned to me in 8^th grade.  I am not sure exactly what changed my reading habits but I am glad they did! I can’t imagine not enjoying reading as an adult.  

Laurie as a 1st grade reader--
When I was in 1st grade I remember reading the Dick and Jane basal readers. I was in a catholic school.  I don't remember any other books in the classroom.  At home I had the Dr. Seuss series on special shelf in my room.  I had them in order from my favs to least fav!  I also had the Disney books that came in the mail.  I use to wait anxiously for my books to arrive in the mail every month.  I loved the Seuss books the best.  I remember laying on the floor in my room or on my bed reading and rereading On the First of Octember and One Fish Two Fish.  I also remember reading various books to my dolls! 

Melissa as a Middle School Reader

I have always loved reading and consider myself a reading junkie.  I knew right away that I wanted to teach reading, so that I could keep reading and reading and reading.  In middle school, "English" was always my favorite subject; I couldn't wait to read books with my teachers and classmates.  I loved reading out loud during class, because the teacher would stop and discuss what was going on in the book.  It was like a class book club.  I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye, Tom Sawyer, Night and Dawn, and many other books that opened up the world to me.

One of my favorite reading experiences in middle school was reading Shakespeare's Macbeth.  I clearly remember the classroom:  desks in rows, the teacher's desk at the front, brown empty walls, and green chalkboards.  The teacher would toss the cassette into the "boom box", and the actors' voices would bring the classroom to life.  Each actor was different, and we followed along with our Penguin publishers version of the play.

Although I did not understand much of the actual play, being able to listen to it made such an impression on me.  Hearing the language, listening for tone...it was such a new and exciting experience.  And the fact that there was a murder and talk about blood (this was 6th grade in 1980) was so startling.  I think it was the first book I read where we actually discussed the psychology of people and the mysteries of the mind and guilt.  I loved it.

I still love Shakespeare, but I struggle with teaching it.  If I had an entire year to work on Shakespeare, I would accept the challenge.  There is so much there...one unit would never be enough time to do W.S. any justice!

Amy D. as a 5th Grade Reader

This is a memory from a long time ago, but a memory that I have held onto for many years. My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Gardner, read Anne of Green Gables aloud to the class almost every day. I loved Anne and wished I could have been her! I decided from that moment on that I would live in New England which was probably as close as I would ever get to Prince Edward Island. Well, I made it from New York to Vermont and that has made all the difference. I don't remember having many choices in our school library and certainly there were no books in our classroom to choose from. At home, I scoured our small bookcase and read everything I could get my hands on-- Little Women, The Yearling, fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson, and then onto encyclopedias :-). I remember trying to read Moby Dick, but it did not interest me in the least. I must admit that I love the DCF books and all the great choices available in my classroom library, as limited as it is. I hope to inspire students to read by sharing my love of books and I'm always looking for suggestions for new reads.

Traci Clark-First Grade

      Thinking back to my early elementary days, I do not remember reading in First grade.  I remember who my teacher was and rotating between stations. The stations were both hands on and workbooks.   I also remember writing my first book, and how we got to design our own cover, but I truly do not remember doing any independent reading or small group reading until second or third grade. My memories of reading in these grades are not happy ones; I remember reading out of basal readers. I remember always feeling very nervous to be called up to my reading group because I knew we were going to have to read out loud.   I was afraid I would make a mistake and my friends would tease me. I remember that I would be sitting at a table with a few friends and my teacher would pick a student to start reading out loud.  I would wait nervously as he would tell the student when to stop and then randomly pick another student to start reading where they left off.  I still remember the awful feeling I had in my stomach waiting for my turn. I believe this is why I prefer to listen and conference with children one on one. When I do my reading groups I try to be sensitive to students comfort level and make sure that I am doing reading and some type of work that each child can feel successful at first, so that when we start to tackle the more challenging parts they will be more comfortable. 

Myself as a 4th Grade Reader

I can honestly say I don’t really remember myself as a 4th grade reader up until the very end of the year. I do remember my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Aiken, who helped me find my just right book- Prophecy of the Stones. I remember growing up always having my mom read stories to me every night. We would read Harry Potter, Magic Tree House, and endless amounts of Judy Blume books. I was never really a motivated reader. One day our teacher brought us to the book fair at the library. Sitting out on display was this bright orange book with pictures of three different stones. My teacher looked at me and said, “this would be right up your reading alley!”. My teacher knew I had difficulties  finding a book in the past and she told me that this book was about three girls who each had different powers and had to work together to overcome evil. I was instantly hooked. This was the first book I was actually excited to read. I would spend all of my free time reading this book and truly living in the character’s shoes, feeling like I was part of the story. Once I finished this story I felt more confident in my reading abilities. 4th grade and beyond were productive years for me in regards to reading. I finally found different types of stories I enjoyed reading (mostly mysteries, realistic fiction, and some documentaries). I think I just needed the push to find my just right book and the stamina to stick with a book for a long time. At age 9 it is hard to stay focused on a specific task for a long amount of time. I feel like putting myself into the mind of my students has helped me because I can truly tell which students are engaged in their books, and which students are not interested in reading at all based on my prior reading experiences. My goal this year is to help my 4th graders become the motivated 4th grade reader I became over my years of elementary school!

Jessica as a 1st grade reader

I can not think back to myself as a 1st grade reader.  I'm not sure I even knew how to read then, or I was learning to read.  I do remember having books at home, although I don't remember my mom reading to me much.  She wasn't a reader herself, but I had a bookcase filled with books.  As time went on, I remember a few books that I read, but I don't remember much.  I have never really been a reader.  It was always something that was difficult for me and I read extremely slow and by the time I get to the bottom of the page, I often have no idea what I've read. Therefore, I have to read it gain.  I remember a few books that were mentioned by others, although I don't necessarily remember what grade I was in.  The books I remember were: Bunnicula, Freckle Juice,  Where the Red Fern Grows, Shiloh and Little Women.  I also really liked the Ramona Quimby books/series and Beverly Clearly all together.  I also remember one she wrote about a little mouse....Ralph?  I had many of these books at home and I read them for book reports.  I remember my teacher reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School to us as a read aloud.  I recently saw this book in a give away pile at school and took it home to read to my son.  I often remember reading out of a large textbook and going around the room reading aloud a paragraph or a few sentences.....not so much fun.   I don't remember much about reading groups, although I'm sure we had them.  Jumping to high school, there were a few books I do remember b/c I loved reading them:  The Count of Monte Cristo and The Great Gatsby were two of my favorites and Lord of the Flies wasn't a favorite, but it is one I remember.  I guess what I'm noticing is that books I enjoyed stand out, the others faded away.

Kristina as a 4th grader

I have never been able to remember the details of learning to read or the type of reader I was. What I do remember is being read to by my mom and reading to my mom. The books I read with her are still favorites to this day. In fact, most of them I read to my 4th graders. I always tell them it was a favorite when I was growing up so I choose these books because I like them and I am comfortable with them.
The one thing I remember that is reading related from 4th grade is doing group research projects on countries around the world. I remember there being a lot of reading involved in the research. It was obviously nonfiction and I was very interested in it. Since then I have loved reading nonfiction, specifically about other cultures and places in the world. Those research projects hooked me into reading nonfiction.

Liz as a 5/6 grade reader

I teach fifth grade, but many of my strongest reading memories are from sixth grade, so I thought I'd post about both! I was a voracious reader in 5/6 grade. I read all of the Babysitters Club books, as well as Sweet Valley Twins. I loved series, because there was always another book to read. I also read more classic books and enjoyed A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, because my mom loved them too. I was not a reader of non-fiction because I couldn't bear to "waste my time" when there was SO much fiction out there that I couldn't wait to read (admittedly and unfortunately, I still feel that way!).  By sixth grade, I was really starting to enjoy creepy books like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, anything by Mary Downing Hahn - Wait Till Helen Comes and The Doll in the Garden being top favorites - and then, R.L. Stine. My mom did not want me reading R.L. Stine, and wouldn't buy them for me, so my friend Stephanie and I would gather around our 6th grade book orders, decide who would buy what, and then hand over bills and coins to our very forgiving teacher. We read and swapped and hid our books, and I STILL love reading creepy and suspenseful stories. I also strongly remember reading, discussing, writing about, and loving The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle in sixth grade. I get so excited now when any of my students are reading it, because I still love to talk about Charlotte's adventures and the mysteries on the ship.

Eileen - elementary age

I currently teach first grade. I'm sitting here trying to rack my brain to remember what reading was like when I was a first grader.  I went to Catholic school and was taught by a nun.  I honestly only remember that I didn't really like her because she was mean (or at least I thought she was).  Over the next few years, I had teachers who I liked and at least one more nun who I didn't like (she was scary).  Reading time was never an activity that I loved to do during school time because it involving a great deal of popcorn reading and small groups. We never read anything great.  It was all canned texts. To be honest, I found it all quite boring. I still loved books and reading.  Just not in school.  My favorite memories as a child was picking out books in the library and reading them with my parents and siblings.  Either my mom or dad would read with us almost every night.  They were good sports about reading the same book over and over again.  I probably would have never known the enjoyment of books and reading if not for my parents.  So I guess now with my "teacher glasses" on, I can relate my own experiences to the importance of self-selection and finding books that are of high interest to students.

Becky as a reader

I remember it was either second or third grade when my teacher read Charlotte's Web for the class read aloud. I instantly fell in love with Wilbur. His wide range of emotions made us all laugh, and also made some of us cry. As a class, the teacher included, we were all teary-eyed when Charlotte died. There were definitely feelings of attachment to the characters, even Templeton!
As a reader, now, as well as then, I enjoyed stories that had characters that showed a lot of emotion, had a solid story line and a definite lesson to be learned.

Steve as a 13-Year-Old Reader (8th Grade)

I can remember my 8th grade year only slightly, although I wish I could remember even more. Although we did do some class novels, my memory instantly goes to diagramming sentences...not my favorite activity! However, a pleasant reading memory would be when we were assigned Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  I was instantly absorbed into this novel because of the strong narrative voice and the range of emotions the text created for me as a reader. My teacher would assign sections for homework, but the majority of the novel was read aloud. I can still remember these sections of class because I just wanted to keep going and going with the book. This was the first time I ever remember truly loving a book. Honestly, I think I connected with this text the most because it wasn't extremely difficult. I found out that reading didn't have to be something that caused frustration. I was hooked!

I hope that I can leave a lasting impression on my students with the texts they choose to read in class. Giving them so much choice and guidance should help with this substantially!

Lindy as a fourth (maybe fifth) grade reader

My initial memory was first grade but it was related to a favorite book because the character had the same name as my first grade teacher! My actual memory relating to me as a reader has to do with a biography study we did. I'm sure I created a diorama! I think I was in fourth grade but the material seems very hard for a fourth grader so I'm unsure. I chose Louisa May Alcott and wanted so badly to be her! I read the biography and then read Little Women, and I believe Jo's Boys. I was determined to grow up to be a writer and independent. I know I read a lot of biographies and was fascinated by the lives of these strong people. I also remembering choosing biographies of women and my teacher helping me. This is why I'm pretty sure it was fourth grade because Miss Salan was my teacher and she was a single, independent woman who flew a Cessna on weekends and even took me flying a few times. Her influence definitely had an affect on my reading and my aspirations. I recently read Little Women again and the language is very hard. I'm surprised I read it as a fourth grader.

In reading this I realize how important the influence of my teachers was on my reading. Mrs. Otto and Otto the fish. Miss Salan and strong, independent women. Thank you to my great teachers.

Week 2: My reading life as a reader when I was my students' age!

In this post we want you to reflect on what type of a reader you were when you were the age of the students you are teaching. If can't remember choose an age you do have a strong memory of related with you as a younger reader.

For this post we want you to start a post. Click on New Post when the page shows up be sure to label the little box at the top with the Orange word Post with your name and the age as a reader. I will post an example. 

The second requirement is to find a couple (minimum of 2) of posts that you relate to or want to comment on and click on the "reply" under the post with your message. 

Ideally you will write your post this weekend so people have posts to reply to before class on Thursday!

Getting Started!

Please comment below by rating your comfort level:

• Teaching reading using the workshop model

You can simply post a number from 1 (least) to 5 (most) for each. 

Please share a favorite children's/young adult book with an instructional focus. Tell us why it is a favorite and briefly how you use it.

If your email shows as "crazyteacher@gmail.com" please identify yourself in the post. If your email is something that indicates your name you don't need to this! I will comment below to show what we want. Let's get started! Lindy