This chapter emphasizes how you should share your reading habits with your students to encourage them to read. Our students look at us as role models, and If they believe we love reading they will find themselves loving to read as well. This chapter mentions how students view reading as a chore or something that they have to do because of an assignment. But, we should share with our students that reading is also done for pleasure. For me, there is nothing like snuggling up on a cold rainy day with a good book. As an only I child for 12 years, I spent many days reading. It was my way of escaping, never being alone. I can remember reading entire chapter books in one day because I was so interested in what happened next. One that really stuck in my brain was The Face on the Milk Carton. This book was a part of a series and I read all three in one week. This makes me realize that our students will read and enjoy reading if we find topics that interest them. Our students will learn to take pleasure in reading just as we do.
The author also shows her students her actual personal library "which is awesome". I have never thought of showing my students pictures of my personal library as a way to motivate students to read for pleasure. At times I love sharing my favorite children's authors with my students. I love telling my students that Eric Carle books are some of my favorites. I tell them this is because he was a great author and illustrator. I agree with the author in saying it is unfortunate that many of our students can't tell you the authors of their favorite books. The author writes, "Sadly, many of our students are hard pressed to cite even one author they know and like." I feel this is why some teachers find it important to do author studies. But, I feel sometimes this could be changed just from finding more time to have book talks with our students. During these book talks we could introduce our students to other books by the same author.
The quote that stood out to me the most in this chapter was, " Think about what gives you pleasure as a reader, and bring that into the classroom." This means you must decide why you love reading and share this with your students. Then use this information to connect with your students to encourage them to love reading as well.
Happy Sharing :-)
It is sad that our students can't tell us any names of authors. When I ask my students about their favorite books they can't even name the titles. This tells me that my students do not share the same love of reading as I do. I want my students to be able to tell me about their favorite authors and the stories that they write. One way I want to share my love of reading is to start reading aloud chapter books written by my favorite children's authors so that my students can experience books that they normally wouldn't pick out to read.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Girls! I knew that I was doing something good with my students when the librarian at my school told me that my students were the only students who came to the library asking for books by a particular author. That came about because it was something we discussed as part of our read aloud each day. What power there is in modeling for out students!
ReplyDelete"Think about what gives you pleasure as a reader, and bring that into the classroom." This means you must decide why you love reading and share this with your students. Then use this information to connect with your students to encourage them to love reading as well." Well said Corrie! I loved this quote as well when reading this chapter and it challenged me to bring in the texts that I enjoy as well as those that I know target my students' interests. We don't need outside incentives as much as we need high quality literature and thoughtful instruction. Thank you for the reminder! Dawn
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