For those of you who have followed me for a while, you know that helping students develop a passion and love for reading is a huge part of what I love most about my job. Whether I am doing book talks about new books, or trying to help them learn all the strategies they need to be successful, students hear me talk about books and reading all day long.
On this day, I also talked to the students about how important it is for me that they learn how to pick books that they love and can’t wait to read every day. I talked to them about the concept of being “in the zone” and what that means for them. All of them have been “in the zone” playing video games where they couldn’t even hear their name being called for dinner! We talked about how if you are picking books that really and truly are a good match for you, you can get into the reading zone–just like that! To do that, we learned the best way to “preview” a book–and I modeled it with our first read aloud, “Shredderman”.
We worked on reading stamina as well… and worked on having each student start to make good choices about not just want to read, but where to read and who to read next to as well! One day at a time . . . the good news is that my students are EAGER to read–but we still need some work on those reading behaviors! I’ve started sitting down with each child to listen to them read a little bit, so we are well on our way to a great year of reading. Watch for more posts about independent reading and our progress over the next weeks!