Summer Reading Challenge Update

It's been a little over three weeks since I sent out the Summer Reading Challenge.  It's been fun to see how things are progressing.  Right now I have about 15 staff members from our school and throughout our district participating.  We're a very small district.  Fifteen represents close to 10% of all staff members and closer to 20% of all teachers.  I'm thrilled - especially when nine of those are from my school.  I've even heard from parents that students have joined in the challenge as well.

My own reading has taken new life this summer.  I've made it a priority.  I've read more books my students would read this summer than I have in a great while and that's a good thing!

Here's my "What I Read This Summer" list:

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
Ashes to Asheville by Sarah Dooley
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Death Cloud by Andrew Lane
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Lead With Literacy by Mandy Ellis
Sparks In The Dark by Travis Crowder and Todd Nesloney
The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis
Alexander Hamilton: The Making of America by Teri Kanefield
Refugee by Alan Gratz
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Unstoppable Influence by Natasha Hazlett
The Wild Card by Hope and Wade King
Kids Deserve It! by Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome

In the midst of reading:
Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Culturizes by Jimmy Casas

I've been on the road quite a bit this summer.  I had always used Audible, but never really felt the need to purchase an audiobook.  I'd rather rent them.  That's how I discovered the Otto books app- now called Hibooks.  For a fee much cheaper than Audible, I can listen to as many books as I choose each month.  They have new and popular titles and many of this year's Battle of the Books books.  It's been such helpful app as I've traveled around.

Want to follow our progress?  Some of the staff and I are posting on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtags: #pqtigersread and #pqreads.  Check us out!

When Books Move You...

Have you ever read a book that "moved" you?  One that made you question how you've acted or how you've viewed others.  I never really experienced this until I read the book, "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper this summer. 

The story is about a young girl named Melody with cerebral palsy.  She's very intelligent, but no one really knows for sure because her physical disabilities keep her from speaking and controlling her actions.  Things change when she gets a computer that will speak for her.  Her world opens up and she is finally able to communicate with those around her.  The readers have known it from the beginning, but those around her learn just how intelligent she is.

A key piece to the story is that the author, Sharon Draper, chose to write the story in first person.  From the very first sentence we meet Melody, ironically, in her own words.  We are inside of her head.  We know exactly what she is thinking and what she would say to the world if she could speak. We experience the reactions others have to her disabilities through Melody's own thoughts.  You experience the highs and lows with her and in the end want to shout, "You go girl!"  

I didn't just read the book, I listened to it as an audiobook.  It was really like being inside of Melody's head and having her talk to me.  The young lady they chose to read the story was very believable as the character.  I felt as if I was really listening to Melody.

And, it moved me.

As I listened to the story there were times when Melody shared how others reacted to her.  There were times I saw myself in those characters.  I've known students like Melody.  Students with cerebral palsy, autism, or other disabilities who weren't able to express themselves either physically, verbally or both.  Some I knew well enough to know their strengths and what made them tick, but others, not so much.  And did I really even try?  Did I just write them off as unable and move on. 

That's the part that bothered me.  I didn't try.  While I work to get to know "my" kids, I didn't really try very hard to know them unless I had to.  This was a punch in the gut.  How many of them saw me as Melody saw those negative characters in the story?  Had I treated them at times the way she was treated?  Like she wasn't smart.

Now that it's been brought to my consciousness and I'm really aware.  I need to act differently.  I need to be different.  This may sound corny to some, I know.  But when you work with kids, you don't want to "write off" anyone.  My goal now is to work a little harder to "see" the ones I may not have seen before and work to understand a bit more about them.  I know they have many lessons to teach me and if I'm smart enough, I just might learn something.

This Amazing Thing!

So last week, I went to this thing.  It was an amazing thing.  At this amazing thing it talked about something even more amazing - reading!

The amazing thing was the Scholastic Reading Summit.  Evidently they have hosted this for several years, but I just happened to hear about it from my next seat buddy at NCDLCN (NC Digital Leaders Coaching Network - another amazing thing!)

I went into complete fangirl mode when I was able to meet Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer, and John Schumacher, Mr. Schu Reads. I even had Donalyn Miller sign my copy of her book.  I also reconnected with Pernille Ripp, who I'd met when she presented at NCTIES the year I was conference chair.

The first session I attended was Pernille Ripp's Creating Passionate Readers.(http://www.pernillesripp.com) These are the things that I took away from her session:

-How often do we base our own reading instruction on what we knew/ need as readers?

-We had books, but we didn’t speak books.

-We can’t tell students we need to read if we don’t model that behavior.  
-Students know when you take the time to read what they are reading.  I care so much about your reading life that I read what you read.

-Students read what we bless

• What are we recommending?
• What displays - themed displays?
• Books about resilience, family, character.
• What are you book talking?

-Kids hate all of the stuff they do with reading, not just reading.

-WOW!!!! - If students are not motivated to read research shows they will simply not benefit from reading instruction.

My thoughts
Pernille's session reinforced what I was trying to do with the Summer Reading Challenge for teachers.  There were a couple of things that stuck out with me.  1) Do I speak reading?  Have I been modeling the behaviors I want to see in students?  My answer was - not really.  I could converse about a few books - especially in the fantasy realm, but not much beyond that.  I'd share books I saw being checked out a lot or books from popular authors.  I didn't have the reading clout to go beyond that.
2) Kids hate the stuff they have to do with reading, not just the reading.  If students are motivated to read they won't benefit from reading instruction.  This was my "holy cow" moment.  We beat stories to death - worksheets, reading logs, vocabulary tests, and a million filler activities.  But really, by doing all of that, we are killing the joy of reading.  When we kill the joy of reading, we throw up all sorts of road blocks that prevent students from learning.  That was my WOW moment!  My theme for this year - Just Let Them Read!

Engaging Middle School Readers - Donalyn Miller

-Are we communicating the fact that reading is fun - only if you can do it well?

-No matter how much we change the test, the kids that read the most will always outperform those who don’t on the test.

-Celebrate Sneaky Reading! - instruct students in the art of sneaky reading.

• Kids can take books with them wherever they do - every single class.
• Other teachers in other subjects can support reading when you’re finished .

-Access to books for kids was more important the level of education of their parents.

If they don’t have consistent book access they aren’t going to achieve their full promise.

-How are we using/ misusing systems

• Leveling systems were meant for the books, not the children
• Fountas and Pinnell - say their leveling system is now harming children - meant for guided and instruction reading, not children

-Look at the representation of books in your library - are they positive or do they perpetuate sterotypes

-Teachers who are engaged with reading themselves they are statistically better reading teachers.

-The act of reading is not finished until I’ve had the opportunity to share with someone else.

My thoughts

Donalyn showed us several graphics that show how much of a difference it makes in test scores when we provide time to read at school. The longer the time, the higher the scores. I have those cued and ready to share once school starts to push for independent reading time during class.

There were two main points that really kind of slapped me up beside my head. The first was how we use leveling systems. When Donalyn said, "Fountas and Pinnell - say their leveling system is now harming children - meant for guided and instruction reading, not children." This is one I want to share with my teachers. We don't need to label our kids and limit their reading levels.

The other point was when Donalyn asked us to look at the representation of books in your library. Both she and Pernille talked about making sure we had diverse books. Making sure that all of the students in our school had books with characters that allowed them to see themselves in books. This has made me be more intentional when I purchased books this summer.

Overall thoughts

The Scholastic Reading Summit was and amazing thing and one of the best literacy professional development workshops I've attended in a long time. I left reassured that I was on the right track with where I wanted to take the library and ultimately our school with building a community of readers. I left challenged. Challenged to build a collection that reflected all of our students. Challenged to make sure I modeled reading and encouraged our teachers to do the same. Most of all, I left excited. Excited that it's not too late for our students. That we can still help grow their love of reading and that I had strategies, ideas, and experts to use and go to to help accomplish that goal!

Summer Reading Challenge

In reflecting upon last school year, one of my biggest weaknesses was neglecting books.  I'm not talking about the upkeep of them.  I'm talking about not spreading the love of reading, the joy of books, nurturing my readers.  

I did spend a lot of time building our makerspace and really getting it off the ground.   I'm proud of what we've started there, but I spent a LOT of time with the tech.  Technology is great, don't get me wrong.  It's the world we live in, but books!  Books and reading reach deeper.  

Kids will practice technology - good, bad, or ugly - they will use it constantly.  Reading is different.  They will read Snaps from their friends, comments, or text messages.  They will read or at least glance over assignments or things they have to do, but do they all REALLY read.  

Kids will practice sports, their hobbies or passions, but as students get older they practice reading less and less.  Just like in any sport, if you don't practice you'll have a hard time improving.  If you don't practice reading, you'll have a hard time improving there, too.  

Here's the thing.  I can't do this by myself.   We have to come together as a school community to build a culture or reading.  So, I borrowed this idea from a phenomenal library friend of mine, Nancy Heiniger.  Every summer she would issue a reading challenge to her staff.  Before they left for the summer those that wanted to participate could select 20 books from the school library they would read.  They had to write about it, post on social media and share what they read in a spreadsheet that turned into a book recommendation list.  

Well, it's July.  If I said 20 middle school books for my teachers I'd hear laughter far and wide.  I changed the number to 5 books over two months.  On July 4th, I posted this little beauty on Facebook, Twitter and sent an email to staff.  

Today is July 9th.  I've had a few teachers email me and some have already posted on social media.  Yay!  

I'm excited for several reasons.  

1) My teachers are reading books our kids read.

2) They will be sharing the fact that they have read these books on social media and when school starts back in July.

3) They can talk with students about books.  Let me say this again.  Teachers can talk to students about books!!!

My goal for this challenge is to have teachers read what students are reading so they can have conversations about books.  REAL conversations.  Not just the surface of, " Oh, that looks like a good book.", type of conversations, but really talk about the story or characters.  

One of my most powerful memories about reading occurred a couple of years ago when a student had just finished "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness.  You may have seen the movie, but in the book you don't know his mom is sick.  It hits you at the end like a ton of bricks.  I'm working on a project when the student comes bursting in the library in tears.  I'm trying to figure out what's wrong.  All she could say was, "It's so sad."  You didn't tell me it would end this way.  Then I saw that she was clutching the book.  We sat down, both of us in tears now, and talked about the story and how it had affected us. We wouldn't have been able to do that had I not read the book.  

I'm not saying we all need to sit and cry over stories, but being able to have meaningful conversations or to know a book and a student so well that you'll know they fit.  It is powerful.  It's how you help students discover or rediscover the magic in reading.  It's how you build and grow a community of readers.  Person by person.  Book by book.

My New Favorite Thing... Adobe Character Animator!

I was scanning Twitter one afternoon this week when I saw a post about an Adobe Education training to use Character Animator in the classroom.  I did a little digging around and OMG!!! I've found the next thing to add to our makerspace.

Character Animator takes a puppet you create in Photoshop or Illustrator and brings it to life.  The software is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.  The movement is creating using face tracking via your webcam.   The lip sync feature uses sound to give the illusion of talking.  Through videos and templates created by Dave Werner (@okaysamuri) I was up and running in no time.  This is the getting started video I used.  You can access his templates and other resources by going directly to the YouTube page for this video and expand the description.

Knowing Illustrator or Photoshop make the process easier, but you can still be up and running using pre-made puppets.  Within 15 minutes, I'd created a simple character and my first video.  It's not pretty, but you can see it here.

The thing I couldn't stop thinking about was how students could use this for projects.  I imagined a student generated Abraham Lincoln reading the Gettysburg Address or Bud from "Bud, Not Buddy" telling of his adventures from the book as he went searching to find his father.  I imagined an animated school mascot providing announcements on our YouTube channel.  The possibilities are endless.

Heads of Curriculum is another little gem I stumbled across while searching for puppet templates.  They have 8 school related templates:  a skeleton, historical figures and literary characters.

I've already shared this with a couple of our social studies teachers.  I'll be sure to post student generated videos as soon as I have some to share.