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.