The Book Whisperer Book Study

The Book Whisperer

Chapter 7: Letting Go

The Final Chapter

This week marks the end of a seven week book study some fellow Canadian bloggers and myself have been participating in. Each week we have been posting our thoughts on The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I have enjoyed the book and am so glad to have had the chance to share my thoughts and ideas with all of you.

 My previous post:

 Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3/4 

& Chapter 5/6

Chapter 7 filled me with mixed emotions.
I felt relieved, saddened and motivated while reading this short chapter. 

I was relieved to read about the accomplishments of Donalyn's students. Not because I was worried about the students but because it helped to put things in perspective for me. Sometimes the challenges of starting a new school year can be overwhelming. I found that reading about the gains her students made was a great reminder of what can be accomplished in a year.

I felt saddened when reading how those same students returned to her classroom years later voicing their frustrations with their current school experiences and teachers. Stories of how students weren't being given time to read books that interest them, how their current teachers neglected to take them to the library and how they spent more time completing reading comprehension questions than actually reading at school. 
Understandably, Donalyn was moved to tears after hearing these experiences. Thinking about the negative experiences that our students will encounter while going though school is disturbing. Donalyn chooses not to subject her students to negative experiences, opting not to groom them with for mindless work.

  "We should be seeking to have fully engaged students now". Making sure that their current year is as enriching, powerful and glorious as their year can be.

"Allowing students to choose their own books and control most of their own decisions about their reading, writing, and thinking does a better job of preparing them for literate lives than the traditional-and-ubiquitous-novel units, test practices, and pointless projects."

The Book Whisperer

I am motivated!!

Motivated to provide my students with an "enriching, powerful and glorious year."

Are you? 

Want to read more about Chapter 7,
click the links below to see what the other ladies have to share.
Thanks for reading!

Lauren

An InLinkz Link-up

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The Book Whisperer Book Study

The Book Whisperer

Chapter 5 -Walking the Walk

Chapter 6 - Cutting the Teacher Strings

 For the past six weeks some fellow Canadian bloggers and myself have been reading and posting our thoughts on the book The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Today I will be posting my thoughts on Chapter 5 & 6 in order to get caught up with the other ladies.

 My previous post: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, & Chapter 3/4

Chapter 5 made me reflect on my own personal relationship with reading?
I enjoy reading a good book and will often read while on holidays or during summer vacation. But during the school year I rarely pick up a book just for my personal enjoyment. My reading consists of books related to teaching and children's books that I am either reading to my daughter or to my class. Like many of you, my excuse is that there isn't enough time in a day to fit in pleasure reading. But with that said, I agree with Donalyn "teachers do need to be reading role models for our students". 

Sadly, Associated Press released a poll in 2007 showing that the average American adult read an average of 4 book in a year. Teachers are part of this poll, it seems that we are not walking the walk when it comes to doing what we teach. Reading only four books in a year seems rather minimal. I'm not sure how many I have read but I wouldn't expect the number to be much greater than four.

 What kind of a reading role model does that make me?
Is it possible to instill the love of reading in my students and daughter without making reading a priority in my life?

Yes, I think so.

Donalyn states that as teachers it is important that we regularly read with our students and talk about reading with them as well. I figure that even though I may not find the time to read a book for my own personal pleasure, reading to my students and my daughter are high on my priority list.

Reading to my students during recess snack is one of my favorite times during the school day.We have been reading Sea Dog by Dayle Campbell Gaetz, and my students are loving it. Most importantly I am reading this book to them for pleasure! The only expectation of them is that they listed quietly and are open to chatting about the book. 

At home the bookshelf is my daughters favourite toy box!! Reading and looking at books is built into our daily routine. 

 If asked, do you wish you had more time to read for pleasure?
My answer would be...yes!

But do I think that my lack of reading for pleasure will change the way my students or daughter feel about books?

I'm not convinced that I do.

Do you consider your self to be a reading role model for your students/children?
Do you find time to read for pleasure?
I would love to read your comments.

On to Chapter 6...Cutting the Teacher Strings

In the opening paragraphs of Chapter 6, Donalyn writes that over her teaching career, students have told her that  
"reading as it is traditionally taught and assessed actually encourages them to hate reading." 

In this chapter Donalyn examines some traditional language arts practices and proposes alternatives that accomplish the same goals while keeping with the the habits of true readers.

She describes the dark side of whole-class novels, teaching to comprehension tests, book reports, reading logs, round robin and popcorn reading as well as incentive programs. While also including alternatives such as replacing book reports with book commercials and book reviews, which sound far more appealing than the traditional report.

This chapter is thought provoking. It makes me reflect on my experiences with reading in school (many include the practices warned against by Donalyn), what teaching practices I am currently using and what I want my students experiences with reading to look and feel like.

Want to read more about Chapter 6, read more posts by clicking the links below.

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

The Book Whisperer Book Study

The Book Whisperer

Chapter 2 - Everybody Is a Reader

 

I am very excited to be joining some great Canadian Bloggers on a Book Study of The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. We will be blogging about a chapter every Monday for the next seven weeks!! If you haven't read The Book Whisperer and would like to check it out, you can find it HERE. You can read the other ladies blog posts at the bottom of this page.

If you are just joining our blog hop Here is my Chapter 1 post. 

During Chapter 2, I found myself reflecting on my teaching practices, classroom environment and most of all my students, past and present.

Miller starts this chapter off by explaining her views on the labels given to students. She chooses to forgot the negative labels of "struggling readers" and "reluctant readers" for more encouraging terms. She states, "I prefer to use positive language to identify the readers in my class". Great idea don't you think?

According to Donalyn, these are the three types of readers that she consistently recognizes.

 Personally, I think Miller is spot on with her identification and explanation of the three types of readers. She even includes student examples from her teaching experiences. I know that I was able to identify students that would fit into each reading type.

How about you?

Conditions for Learning

My classroom is like my second home, it is the one place other than my actual home that I spend the majority of my time. Creating a classroom that is engaging, comfortable and motivational for myself, but most importantly for my students, is my goal. Over time, Miller has learned that no matter how dynamic and well planned her instruction is, it is doomed to fail if her classroom is not a motivational environment for readers.

My classroom library!

Donalyn now focuses her efforts on designing an engaging classroom environment based on researcher Brain Cambourne's findings. After years of classroom observation, Cambourne identifies factors that contribute to successful learning. 

The part of the chapter that I enjoyed reading the most was focused on student surveys. At the beginning of the school year Miller has her students fill out a survey which asks questions pertaining to their reading habits but also about their general interest. She analyzes these surveys for information that will help her encourage her students to read. 

I like the survey that is included in the book, however I wanted to make some changes to it so it suited my primary students. I often find that I get more information out of primary students when we sit down one on one and have a little chat. I will be using this survey to guide our conversations and as a recording sheet.

My primary version of a student interest survey.

Visit me next week to read about Chapter 3!

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