The Book Whisperer Book Study

The Book Whisperer

Chapter 3 - There's a Time and a Place

Chapter 4 - Reading Freedom 

 For the past four 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 both Chapter 3 & 4, as last week the busyness of life got the better of me and I had to choose to put my blog aside while I navigated my new life as a working mom and wife. 

Thank goodness the first week is over!! 

I am excited to be back blogging, and with that said if you are interested in reading my previous posts they are linked below. You can find links to the other ladies posts at the bottom of this page.

My previous post: Chapter 1 & Chapter 2

I very much enjoyed reading Chapter 3!

The focus for the chapter is finding time in the school day to devote to independent reading. Miller writes about the importance of setting aside time for students to read. She explains that this time should be made a priority in the school day and should be written into ones day plan first rather than trying to find time at the end of the day. She also shares several tricks for fitting more reading into the school day. She suggests reading while waiting for pictures to be taken (I think I will try this out!), training students to get a book out of their desks if classroom instruction is interrupted, and replacing morning work and early finisher work with reading time.

I agree with Miller that finding time for students to read needs to be made a priority. My students get time every day to read during our Daily 5 rotations. I also read aloud to them while they eat their recess snack and devote the majority of our morning on skills related to reading and writing. I try my best to fill the day with learning experiences but to be honest not every moment of the school day is devoted to learning as suggested by Miller. My students start their day completing their Rise and Shine binder (Calendar morning work) and have a folder in their desks with hidden pictures and other activity pages for a quiet free time activity. 

Although I will not be eliminating morning work from our daily schedule or removing my students activity pages from their desks I will try my best to have a book in my students hands more often. As I stated earlier I like Millers idea of reading while waiting in line (like on picture day) and I think I will have my students choose a book to keep in their desks for those times that instruction is interrupted.

 

Now for Chapter 4...

Reading Freedom...what a fantastic title!!

Miller uses this chapter to explain her reading expectations for her students. As the title implies, she gives her students the freedom to choose which books they are interested in and would like to read.  

Wow...how I wish this was my reality as a student!! 

She does set some guidelines though, including the expectation that her students will read 40 books from a variety of genres. She explains, that yes, 40 books may seem impossible to some and relatively easy for others but she also states that she has had few students that did not rise to the challenge and manage to reach the goal. 

How does she do it? 

How does she get her students excited about reading? 

Honesty, is an important component to Miller's classroom environment. During her initial class discussions, Miller is honest with her students, stating that "yes" some books are boring, that it is ok to abandon books that just don't catch your attention and that sometimes reading a short book is the best choice. Miller also mentions the power of staying positive, and not allowing negativity. When a student asked what would happen if they did not reach the 40 books Miller opted to help the student choose a book and get started instead of focusing on the negative.

 

When reading this chapter I couldn't help but think about what my reading expectations are for my students. In the classroom, my students are taught how to choose Good Fit Books for themselves and they have the choice as to what books are added to their Daily 5 book bins. I have not given them guide lines relating to genres etc.. I have yet to devote time to teaching about genres, but plan to in the near future. After doing so I may set some grade apropriate genre expectations.

In the past, my students have choose two books each night for home reading and the titles of these books were added to each students reading log. I never set a goal or expectation other than they had reading for homework. Many students read every night but there were always the ones who "forgot" to read, or "didn't have time" and then there are the ones who just simply "lost" their book bag.

Having moved up a grade this year, and teaching grade two the topic of homework/homereading has been on my mind. I would like to set a number of books as a goal for my students to reach but have yet to make a decision on an appropriate amount or books for a primary classroom.

Do you have a reading goal for your students?

I would love to hear about how you decided on your reading expectations!!

For more on Chapter 4 visit the link below!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Have you missed me?

Wow, it seems like forever since I have written on my blog!! 

Things have been crazy overwhelmingly busy in my world but I am happy to say that I have survived my first crazy week back at school. You see, when schools in BC finally opened up I got to spend three days moving into a new school/classroom and one day with kids and then...I had surgery!! Sooo that ment spending two weeks at home recovering before I was able to return to school and meet my students.

Monday finally arrived and I returned to school!

There's nothing like starting a new school year with an assembly first thing in the am (I didn't even know my students names yet!!), followed by a surprise fire drill in the afternoon. I felt like I was treading water all day, well actually that is how I felt all week.

However, I am very happy to say that I survived the week with a minimal amount of tears (thank goodness they weren't in front of my students) and still had a smile on my face Friday afternoon!!

I am excited about this school year!

I have 20 Grade 2 students and have the help of a wonderful EA.

I am loving my classroom setup this year and I can't wait to share some picture with you in the near future. But for now, here is one sneak peek of my partially set up classroom.

I LOVE the PURPLE!!

 Thank goodness of a long weekend break, as I will be spending most of my day tomorrow sorting through the piles of paper on my desk (from my two weeks away) and also planning for the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned for more classroom pictures and activities from the week.

Lauren

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

Dear Future Me...

Thank you Crystal at Kreative in Kinder for this great Link up!! I am excited to write a letter to myself for school start up 2015.

This was fun!!

I hope you enjoyed reading my letter, and maybe some of my advice will help you out too!

 

Lauren

Five For Friday

Busy, busy, busy...that sums up my week!! 

I am glad to have to time to sit down and take part in Doddle Bugs Link up today. 

Another week of holding the picket line...Yes we (BC teachers) have yet to return to our classrooms and start our school year. So three hours a day have been devoted to walking the picket line with my fellow collegues. I hope this is all over soon!! 

It is official...summer is over and fall/winter is knocking hard at our door! It got cold this week, down to minus temperatures and we even saw our first snow for the season. I was reluctant to dig our mittens, warm coats and toques out of storage but I needed the extra warmth when standing on the picket line. Hopefully it will warm up a bit so that we can enjoy a beautiful fall before the long cold winter arrives.

 

With cooler weather, Anna and I had fun doing inside activities this week. Going to the Library for the first time was a big hit. Anna loves books (just like her mommy) and she enjoyed pulling many of them off the library shelves while I put them back where they belonged. My plan was to find some new books for reading in my classroom when school starts up but that never happened, we did however return home with many books to read to Anna.

It's Freebie time!! I have decided to make my "Introducing Me!" bulletin board template a free item on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. So go check it out HERE and download a copy if you are interested. Make sure to leave me some feedback!

With cooler weather and things looking more like fall outside I decided to pull out my Fall/Halloween Theme box. I'm looking forward to digging into it and giving some of my old lessons/activities a facelift.

That's all for now...hopefully I will be back to work by this time next week!!

Lauren

School Start Up Bulletin Board

Teachers Pay Teachers Product

Bulletin Boards = Fun Fun Fun!!! 

I love designing my bulletin boards! There is nothing better than displaying student work in colourful creative ways. On the first day of school many hallway bulletin boards are beautifully decorated with a welcome back to school design. Not mine!! Nope, for the last couple years I have chose to leave my hallway bulletin board prepped with paper and boarder (that's all) in anticipation of our class "Introducing Me!" display. This display has three components to it, student photo, self portrait and writing.

Step #1 My favourite thing to do on the first day of school is to take a photo of each student holding a specially decorated frame.

This year I gave my frame a facelift with a whole new look. The base of this frame is a picture mat, so it is easy for the students to hold. To decorate it, I used a variety of different paper, display boarder, ribbon, double sided tape and other crafting supplies. Oh and thanks to my friend Angela at Fun in Fourth for helping me make the letters for Grade Two. This is my favourite frame decor yet.

I love the bright colours!!

Smile!!

Step #2 The second step is to have each student draw a self portrait. I usually have a set of hand held mirrors available for students to use during this lesson. It is always fun to see them looking in the mirrors when we talk about the symmetry of the face, kids make the funniest facial expressions! 

First we practice drawing our self portraits on a piece of scrap paper using a pencil. When students are ready for their good self portrait I give them the "Introducing Me!" page and let them use pencil crayons.

Student pa

The frame on the left is where students will draw their self portrait and the frame on the right is where I will glue on their photo taken in Step #1. I have designed this page so that the frames fit a 4x6 vertical photo.

Example of page, after Step #1 and #2 are completed

Step #3 The next step is a writing component. I give each student a strip of paper and have them introduce themselves and write a couple sentences that tell about who they are, things they like, etc..

Cut this page into three strips.

Step #4 Once the writing is completed both the picture page and writing strip are mounted on a 12x12 piece of paper. This year I chose to use white cardstock for the student pages and patterned scrapbook paper for the background. That was a personal choice, but in the past I have used coloured cardstock for the background and white printer paper for the student pages. The finished product looks like my example below!

Finished and ready to be laminated!

Step #5 Laminate the finished pages...I always do this to create a nice keepsake for the end of the year.

You will have to wait to see a picture of my finished bulletin board!
Grab this item on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store HERE!