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.
No comments:
Post a Comment