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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

For the love of reading

It is only our fifth day  in school and it fills me with such pleasure as I gaze around my classroom during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) and see so many children ... all 21 of them with their heads lowered over the pages of the various texts they have selected.


 I'm not surprised by what I see.  The culture of reading in our school is well established.  If I walked down the corridor to our Grade 8 rooms, I would see the same sight!


It's just that seeing them all engrossed in books just a few days after the start of the school year means they are already doing something positive and powerful for themselves.  When I eventually move into lessons about characterization and word choice and conflict and connections to texts, we will already have that shared experience of becoming engaged as readers.


And shared it is...it is essential for me to practice what I preach!  I vary my material - novels at MY reading level/interest, university texts, and of course I regularly read new books that have have been ordered for our class library.

The kids SEE me as a reader.  

They also KNOW I am a reader when I can speak in an informed way about the books I am recommending.  When I determine from their interest surveys or a conversation that they prefer mysteries I can suggest everything from Cam Jansen to "How Come the Best Clues are Always in the Garbage?" to Encyclopedia Brown.

Momentum

With so many things on my proverbial plate at this time of year, it was very easy to lose the sense of momentum I had felt earlier and equally easy to not make the time to do something I have so enjoyed...blogging.

It is also somewhat overwhelming when I read so many wonderful blogs and I wonder where they find the time!?  I have come to realize, of course, they carve it out, they take it early in the morning before they go to work (that doesn't fit me!!) or in bits and pieces throughout the day/evening or even across the whole week.  Whatever it takes... they take because they want and need to blog.

So I begin again and will do what I can when I can!