The Book Whisperer Book Study

Chapter 1 - There and Back Again

I am very excited to be joining some great Canadian Bloggers on our Book Study blog hop. We will be blogging about a chapter every Monday for the next seven weeks!! If you haven't read The Book Whisper by Donalyn Miller and would like to check it out HERE is a link to it. It is even on sale!!

I have to admit, when my good friend Angela, from Fun in Fourth, asked me if I would be interested in taking part in this book study I wasn't completely sure. I didn't know if I really wanted to commit myself to reading the book and finding the time to blog about each chapter. But I figured that I would give it a try...I'm so glad that I did!

When I first saw the book and read the subtitle

Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

I was hooked!!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am passionate about teaching children how to read. So this seemed like the perfect book to complete my first online book study.

In the first chapter of her book, Donalyn reflects on her childhood with fond memories of learning to read and becoming a lover of books. She writes about sharing books with her husband and taking trips to the library with her daughters. While reading I found myself thinking about my childhood experiences with books. I remember trips to the public library with my sister and my mom, getting my very own library card and carrying home a bag full of new books to discover. I remember my mom snuggling up with us girls to read before bedtime. These memories make me smile! Books have always been a part of my life...but sadly having a love for reading has not.

My experiences with books during my schooling, mostly in highschool and in university courses, were much like the experiences that Donalyn writes about later in the chapter. She reflects on her first teaching assignment, how she was so excited to introduce her students to a new book and have them participate in the “amazing unit” that she spent so much time planing. She was sure that they were going to love it just as much as she did. However that was not the case. Donalyn discovered that even though many of her students were avid readers that didn't mean that her students were going to enjoy the types of books that she loved. This is so true!

I was one of those students, I loved to read, but the books many of the books that were “assigned” as reading material in my classes never caught my interest. I remember struggling to stay awake when trying to complete my reading homework. If I am being completely honest, I'm sure that there was more than one novel that I never finished.

It was at this part of the chapter that I really started to think about what my students read in my classroom. I want my students to love reading, and I want to be able to awaken their inner reader.

For the past four years I have used Daily 5 as a framework for my Language Arts. If you are familiar with the book, you know that teaching your students how to choose good fit books for their book bin is an important first step. I love the shoe lesson in Daily 5, explaining how books are like shoes, just because a book/shoe is a good fit for one student doesn't mean that it will be a good fit for all students. Seeing the reaction on my students faces when I bring in a bag on shoes, including my husbands size 14 boots and a pair of my fancy heels, is priceless.

Part of the shoe lesson is devoted to talking about choosing a book the is of interest to them. I have always included this in our conversations but I am guilty for not spending a lot of time discussing what types of books my students enjoy reading and introducing them to different genres.

So after reading and reflecting on this chapter, I have decided to spend more time on discovering my students reading interests as well as teaching them about different genres of books that they may not have discovered yet.

A while back I was reading a blog post written by the school librarian who was trying to gain information about the types of books students were interested in. She decided to ask a group of students, including boys and girls of various grades and reading levels, three basic questions.

1. Do you like to read?

2. When you read, what types of books do you like to read?

3. If you were going to write a book what would you write about?

I really liked these questions, especially the third one! My plan is to interview each student, asking these questions, and then compile the feedback and use it to start our conversation about types of books. You will need to check back to see how this worked.

I am also excited to use THIS set of book genre posters created by Martha Hach of "The Owl Spot".

They are super cute and I think they will spark great conversation and interest for my students. I plan on doing a guided walk through our school library and reading a sample from each genre. Yay, new ideas, resources and lessons make me excited to get back into the classroom.

Wow, that was fun!! I wrote way more than I though I would. I guess that is what happens when you are writing about a topic that you love! I'm sure that I could continue writing but it is late and tomorrow is the first day of school.

Thanks for reading!  Please visit my blog next Monday to read all about Chapter 2 - Everybody is a Reader. And don't forgot to hop on over and read other Book Study posts.

I look forward to reading your comments!!

Lauren