Before taking this class, I knew reading was an important life skill for all children. This class has pushed me to incorporate more reading into my classroom to engage my students even more and make them lifelong readers. All of the students in our school participate in Reader's Workshop and are engaged in reading self-selected books for enjoyment. According to Miller, when students are pulled out for drill and skill work they receive the message that “reading is fun for people who can read well, but that’s not you” (Miller, 10). I want all my students to love reading and become lifelong readers, so I need to find a way to make sure all of my students remain in the classroom for independent reading time.
During this course, students I work with have begun to have community conversations about their reading. I have now been included in that community conversation even though I am not their reading teacher. We all share the books we are reading. Discussions about squeezing in reading time while in the car, on errands, at appointments, downtime during their activities, or during sibling activities have been shared as great times to read a few minutes at a time. Students share out where they keep books for this emergency reading that Miller refers to in her book, Reading in the Wild.
The information that I gained by doing the library media interview project will benefit my students love of reading. During the interview, Megan, our library media specialist talked with such a positive passion about the library. I did not start utilizing her library resources or expertise in my classroom until the second half of the school year. I also learned through this interview that my students and I need to tell Megan what the students need further help and instruction in. Megan and I have already begun discussing what she could incorporate in her library lessons that would greatly help us within the classroom. I also learned how knowledgeable Megan is when it comes to book genres and specific interest topics.
In the future, students will continue to have community conversations about what they are reading. They will make plans for reading on the edge, reading emergencies, utilize preview stacks from me, share reading plans for weekends and vacations, do book commercials, expand their reading diet and take the book survey. A couple of my colleagues and myself worked on the reading survey project together. We administered it to two 5th grade classrooms and half of the 4th graders. The one thing we didn’t include before giving it was the least favorite genre, and we wish we had. In the upcoming years, I will have students complete this survey at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year. The questions in the beginning of the school year will be reflecting on their summer reading and the end of the school year will be reflecting on their reading for the school year. I think this will help students see the importance of summer reading and what we refer to as the "summer slide". It will be a nice comparison then for what their habits and favorites were at the start of the school year compared to the end of the school year. Since the wild reader survey given is electronic I can compare classes from year to year. I will definitely share it with other teachers in my building as something they can use as well. The more staff members collaborate with colleagues, the more successful students will become as readers.
My hope is to give my students additional reading time in my classroom so my students can see me as a reader even though I am not their primary reading instructor. I want my students to view me as a reader so that students have multiple positive reading role models in their lives.