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Post by Sandy Swenson on Oct 29, 2015 7:07:57 GMT
"When the young see their teacher excited about books...they connect more deeply with themselves, with us, and with the text" (Kittle, 47). In the school I'm working in now, all the teachers have signs on their doors that read, "What I'm reading now..." and it has a piece of velcro with an image of the book they are reading. The sign also says how many books they have read since the beginning of the school year. I think Kittle wants teachers to have an enthusiasm toward reading no matter what content area they are teaching. Karise: I like the idea you highlighted that when students observe their teachers' excitement about reading, the students make deeper, more meaningful connections with the text. I've seen middle school hallways and classroom doors decorated with the very thing you described. If a posted book matches that of a student's recent text, student and teacher were able to have lively conversation about the book and its characters... and the student was able to create and extend a connection to the teacher. Students will see throughout the year via the door signs that reading is a lifelong passion... and not just something one does during class when assigned). |
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Post by Monica Szilvagyi on Oct 29, 2015 17:09:52 GMT
My first reaction is that I’m gonna love this book! Penny Kittle refers to her love of books and reading within the framework of a love story. She shares thoughts about the joy and hunger she wants her students to experience from reading. And she wants to encourage the love of books in her students who have a range of reading levels, comprehension, and prior knowledge. I identify with many of Kittle’s unengaged students, as I used to have a Hate-Hate relationship with reading after elementary school. The details are hazy from my high school English and literature courses, but I do have this image of sitting in a desk, among rows of other desks, and taking turns reading sections out loud. The mood was unexciting and slightly depressing. There was little interaction with classmates or the text. Romeo and Juliette, Les Miserable, and The Heart of Darkness were reduced to skimming Cliff’s Notes and gleaning just enough information in order to complete assignments. Kittle shares her similar experience and says she does not have “a single memory of joy during high school English” (p. xiii). I still did not have Book Love in my first years of college at Rockford University, despite having excellent professors in English Literature who studied and researched around the world (one was a renowned scholar on Rudyard Kipling). It was not until I fell in love with Art, Architecture and Art History after studying in London that I made the connection between fantastic images and the words that describe them. The Visual Arts became a bridge to literature and a variety of texts. With increasing speed, I was able to read a large amount of text, including informational and scientific text, which was previously removed from my interests. And with these new tools, I could efficiently study and learn nearly any subject (look at the art major getting perfect scores on chemistry, biology, and anatomy exams!). My schema grew and with each new encounter, I could activate prior knowledge. All of these trials and experiences that I went through are what Kittle describes in her book. Students are often shocked when a teacher sympathizes with student struggles, but I will honestly be able to share I have struggled, too… but came out victorious on the other side. Kittle declares that she possesses a “deep belief in the power of an education to transform a life.” Her students’ lives. And also her own. I love the idea that everyone in the classroom community is changed and transformed. And Kittle is unapologetic and adamant that the readers are just as important as the books, and that reading for pleasure should be part of every school day. She asks “Is there no place in school for what brings joy and escape and urges you to read to the end just to see how it all works out?” My eleven year old son is currently reading The Assassin's Blade: The Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, which is described as a science fiction fantasy novella. Last week he asked me if I’ve ever found a book that is so good that you just can’t put it down? My son has been read to and surrounded by books since he was an infant, and I’m proud that my son possesses Book Love! I then asked him what would happen if a teacher made him read something that was too high in reading level or was an uninteresting topic. His reply? Rage quit! He identified that not only would he quit and abandon the text, he would have strong, negative emotions attached with it. Through her book, Kittle will guide me to become a great teacher who share her love story!! Sandy, I love your illustration of the importance of finding an appropriate level. Rage Quit! Love of books comes so easily to students who were immersed in that attitude, students like your son. That immersion has to be deliberate. It takes time. Some students we might serve in the classroom are only beginning that journey. They may have years of happiness and success without books, and it may be tough to convince them to add books to their life. Kittle's persistence, patience and optimism are key to her success. She avoids the idea of "expectations;" students are allowed to come to her as they are. And then, only once she's introduced the reading habit, does she then offer her students challenging literature. I think we all appreciate Kittle's characterization of a reader's experience as like a roller coaster: after a hard, steep climb, we enjoy something that's breezy, fast and fun. She reminds us that many readers are in the middle of more than one book at once. I imagine students might "chase" one of the denser, deeper, more historically distant works with a page-turner of a fantasy or a high-school-life story. I love that she discourages us from shaming more "frivolous" books. The sentence you quoted, emphasizing the intrinsic merit of an engrossing, engaging read that attracts students to books in the first place, represents a key part of her philosophy. She's advocating that reading should be a part of what the student considers his identity, isn't she? |
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Post by Monica Szilvagyi on Oct 29, 2015 17:30:48 GMT
Penny Kittle’s Book Love reads like a genuine, personal love letter to reading, inspiring students to read, and writing while also providing practical ideas and experience based tactics about how to translate this love into ELA classroom instruction. I found that much of what she writes in this book is a living model for how a strong independent reading life informs one’s writing, which was one of the more significant take-aways that stuck with me. Kittle expresses multiple times, in many ways that she is not concerned with the assessment driven mediocrity that pervades the education system; she is more interested in students reading to learn and learning to love reading through any means possible. This means that our main, underlying goal should always be to create lifelong readers who have the habits and stamina to always choose to read (for enjoyment, at the very least) and have the intrinsic motivation to seek new materials when they are in need. As previously mentioned, Kittle not only indulges in exploring her teaching philosophy through theory and inspiration, but also included the nitty-gritty information about what this looks like in an actual classroom. From reaching unengaged readers, to building a classroom library, to establishing instructional balance, to conferencing with students about reading, to assessing readership through well-crafted response prompts, to building writing and reading communities in the classroom, to providing quality book talks, Kittle does offer many applicable ideas to actually making thing happen for teachers and students. The one thing I questioned while reading this book was how I could use all this excellent inspiration and information in my career as an elementary school teacher. Kittle draws mostly on her experience as an English teacher of high school seniors. After reading her book I will admit that I am more intrigued by the potential of teaching middle school because it would be possible to use more of her ideas, but what If I never teach middle school? How can I instill that sustained passion for reading in elementary school kids? What kind of texts do I recommend? How can I expect them to establish a strong independent reading life at age nine, ten, or even younger? Is it possible? Katie, These are great questions. Much of this class focuses on older students. As a mother of a 6-year old, I can only guess that Kittle's practices would have to be applied to more age-appropriate texts and in a much more supported way. The school monitors my child on minutes read, instead of pages, given that the books we are reading are mostly picture books. The concept of improving reading speed is dealt with very gingerly, by insisting on 20 minutes of reading daily, and assuming that fluency will follow from there. This mirrors Kittle's low-pressure approach. Beyond that, I think lower-elementary teachers can do the same conferences, asking students what they read at home and what they like about it, how characters solve problems, etc. If students bring last night's book in to class, the teacher can begin to talk about sentence structure and voice too. At my house, we may read a Mo Willems and a Beatrix Potter one evening. If I were a lower-elementary teacher, I might use these two authors to talk about different "voices" or styles of writing. I also think you could translate her way of classifying by theme to younger children's literature. I could see myself making a poster, mapping all the books we've read aloud in class so far, (democratically) by theme. Additionally, her idea of "book talks" is exactly what Reading Rainbow was, if you guys are old enough to remember that one! I'm glad you asked the questions you did. Remember when Veronica asked for ideas to help her with the "professional development - expand your horizons" assignment on Tuesday? We all needed ideas, and brainstorming as a groups helped us all. Now that you've asked how to translate Kittle's practices to the lower grades, I hope everybody will chime in with their thoughts. |
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Post by Monica Szilvagyi on Oct 29, 2015 18:07:28 GMT
In reading the first part of Book Love, I feel a sense of familiarity within my own life. I admit that as an adult, I do not read for pleasure enough. I often feel a lot of the struggles that the students in this book feel. When looking back on my life, there was a time where I loved to read for pleasure. I could not get enough of a certain author as an early teen. I would like to say that my life is simply too busy right now to read anything that is not academic, but I know that is not the whole truth. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my ability to read was not strong. My fluency and stamina is not where I think it should be or where I would like it to be. It takes me a long time to get through a text and sometimes I do not even remember what I have read. I found myself doing the minimum many times to get through classes in high school and I am sad to feel as though I really have no positive memories of reading and literature in high school. My memories are mostly of the confusion I felt. In chapter 1, Kittle describes some of the reasoning for why students fall behind and stay behind in reading. It was hard to read the words, “When our curriculum is consistently too difficult for the readers we have, we’ll send them on to our colleagues at the next grade level in a worse place than we received them.” (Kittle: pg 5) That statement felt like a punch in the face, because we know it is true but it often continues to happen. We promise ourselves that the following school year we will be better teachers, and we will work harder. I like how Kittle feels no shame in calling out poor teaching practices that all teachers may have been guilty of at one time or another. Pleasure reading is the key to academic reading and success. I like the style in which Kittle writes as well, it is informative, but it is also narrative and that makes it feel more personal and less of a text book. I like Kittle’s ideas on how to better understand student readers and how to use books they will actually love to monitor their reading strategies. In chapter 3, Kittle has the students set goals for them to increase their fluency and stamina. Overall, I found the first part of this book to be very helpful to read for me as a teacher and me as a reader. There are some very bad habits that I need to break as a reader in order to assist students in becoming better, more engaged readers. Brianna, Kittle's book was an easy read for me as well. I liked her style. She told it like a narrative. I couldn't agree with you more when you said that "our curriculum is consistently too difficult for the readers we have, we'll send them on to our colleagues at the next grade level in a worse place than we received them." I think Kittle gave us some excellent strategies to use so that we do not send students to the next grade level further behind. I think one thing that she did was the Book Talks. I think that it is very important that students are involved in hearing about different books daily so that they can find the books that interest them. Reading for pleasure is how the student will do better with academic reading and be successful. Brianna and Karise, This is true! The first step in bringing a love of reading to students is to improve our own reading! Teachers who have personally struggled and found success are in a good position to guide students through their difficulties to their own personal success. If we never walk that way, we can only guess at where we're sending our students. If reading was just always easy for us (as an aside I would like to opine that that might mean we were doing it wrong) we can't understand our students, what they feel and what they need. Pleasure reading is the way in, I agree, but teachers often struggle to latch more challenging reading onto the reading students do for pleasure. This book is full of approaches: thematic links and genre links, as well as student-defined classifications, like "books about high-school life," which could include anything from vampire books to Ordinary People and A Separate Peace. As a high school student, I read and loved Of Human Bondage and immediately after I started and hated Native Son. I now feel there were enough similarities between these two that with Kittle's help, I might have understood where my dislike of Native Son came from and how to look beyond it. She might have offered me books that would scaffold me into a writing style I was unused to. But other teachers, we don't know exactly how to make those links. We don't feel there is enough time to conference with each student, or to let them read in class. It occurs to me her approach has differentiation built into it; many teachers would be happy a student read Of Human Bondage on her own and leave it at that, but Kittle (or anyone armed with her advice) would not be complacent. Her technique pushes each student to do their best. |
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Post by Brianna Borman on Oct 29, 2015 19:25:28 GMT
The next thing that I really enjoyed in Kittle's book was the Book Talks. How do students know what to read if the teacher, or other students, are not sharing what they are reading? Well a Book Talk is an excellent way to "show off" what you are reading. Students who share what they are reading may interest another student to read that book. Karise, I also really loved the Book Talks. I thought Kittle put a lot of effort into making the books seem worth reading and making them accessible to the students. My favorite part of the chapter regarding the book talks was her admitting that presenting books she had not read was a bad idea and to have guests present. I have learned lessons like this in my own classroom, meaning I have promoted or showed things that I had not previously viewed. Let me tell you, that was a big mistake. The importance of standing behind the books she was showing was what really meant the most to me. -Brianna As she mentions, you never know the circumstances into which you will be hired, you never know if you will even have a classroom, but to never give up, to never shrug with the other teachers and repeat their words, "Title I school," can be applied in any situation. I've underlined very thoroughly in this book so that when I have a specific situation to address, I can look back and remind myself of the things I liked about what Book Love said. Monica, I could not agree more about us not knowing where we will end up and whether or not we will have our own classroom. I think that some of the strategies and lessons taught to us by Kittle can be used in many different settings. I know that my learning about reading strategies has definitely helped me in tutoring literacy. We know that teachers cannot get to every child the way they need to and we hope they do their very best. We are gaining the skills to help our own children and to get specialized jobs or perhaps much different jobs than we had thought we would want based on our changed way of thinking about reading and teaching reading. It is definitely enlightening. -Brianna |
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Post by Brianna Borman on Oct 29, 2015 19:36:03 GMT
The one thing I questioned while reading this book was how I could use all this excellent inspiration and information in my career as an elementary school teacher. Kittle draws mostly on her experience as an English teacher of high school seniors. After reading her book I will admit that I am more intrigued by the potential of teaching middle school because it would be possible to use more of her ideas, but what If I never teach middle school? How can I instill that sustained passion for reading in elementary school kids? What kind of texts do I recommend? How can I expect them to establish a strong independent reading life at age nine, ten, or even younger? Is it possible? Katie, I have had the same thoughts. I do not know if I am going to try to teach middle school, but I know for sure that I would like to at least teach the later elementary grades. Part of my reasoning is that I want to work with children who can read and write fairly well. Of course, the students' capabilities will be determined by who they are as individuals as well as the district they are in. I thought throughout the reading about how some of Kittle's examples would work for children who are younger than high school age. I think we should look at it with our "differentiation lens". Pretend that we are working with Kittle's high schoolers, but that they are only at a middle school or elementary reading level. How would we tweak her teachings to work for the different levels? |
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Post by Brianna Borman on Oct 29, 2015 19:48:39 GMT
Brianna, Kittle's book was an easy read for me as well. I liked her style. She told it like a narrative. I couldn't agree with you more when you said that "our curriculum is consistently too difficult for the readers we have, we'll send them on to our colleagues at the next grade level in a worse place than we received them." I think Kittle gave us some excellent strategies to use so that we do not send students to the next grade level further behind. I think one thing that she did was the Book Talks. I think that it is very important that students are involved in hearing about different books daily so that they can find the books that interest them. Reading for pleasure is how the student will do better with academic reading and be successful. Karise, I appreciate your response. I think that we are starting to see evidence of curriculum being too difficult for students not only regarding reading but in all content areas. How many times have we written lesson plans for our own grad classes, assigned an age group to them, and done a trial run with a child that age, and it simply was over the child's head? How many times have we followed state standards and implemented an activity with a child that did not land because what real children knew vs what CCSS said they should know did not match up? Hopefully by Kittle opening our eyes to this injustice and lazy behavior, thinking "it can be the next teacher's problem" can help us make changes across all content areas. We can start with reading though.  |
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Post by Katie Elias on Oct 30, 2015 2:42:36 GMT
Brianna, I did not remember to include it in my post, but the (first) point you made about students seeking understanding through reading was a powerful take away from the book for me too. So much of the social emotional needs that we, as teachers, do not always have time to meet could be accessed by our students through reading literature. It might even resonate more intimately for them since reading can be a process of intrinsically motivated personal discovery. I agree with Kittle that this aspect of reading probably pertains mostly to adolescent and pre-adolescent students, but it is an extremely valuable benefit for that age group. I think that younger students could access that kind of personal connection from a text with modeling and practice. Also, thank you for reminding me of Kittle's quote on pg.60; "If you're not leading from your own reading life, not many students will follow." I have admitted that I am not an avid reader of anything and haven't personally valued reading for a very long time. This absolutely needs to change if I want to inspire my students in their own reading life. I don't know about you, but I plan on using Kittle's descriptions of how she helped her students to improve myself as a life-long reader! I almost feel like by reading this book, I had a cheat sheet into what we really need to know as teachers and readers. I feel as though there were so many important things to take away from this book. • “Students seek an understanding of themselves and others” (pg 49) really resonated with me. Basically, students need a reason to read. I agree that this is really important when creating book loving readers. Sometimes a walk in someone else’s shoes can be relatable to one’s own life, even if the circumstances are different. Characters in books can model both good and bad behavior in respect to life events and hardships. Their experiences can also put things in perspective for us readers. If curriculum planning does not help all students equally, then even forcing readings on students will not work. Everyone does not always need to read on grade level to become better readers. • I think another essential take away from this book is creating and maintaining a useful library in the classroom. Having appropriate literature for several reading levels and interests, organized in a way that makes sense to the students is key in giving them access to literature to continue to develop as readers. • It is important to seize moments at the beginning of the year to start strong and get compliance from students when they still care what you think. • Book talks are imperative to help students get interested in different books. Showing the book, reading a passage, and keeping records of past presented books for students to access are all parts of that. In addition, the best kind of teacher is one that admits fault or weakness and is able to recognize he/she is not “all knowing”. Book talks can be done by colleagues as well as shown from YouTube in order to give the students options and exposure to as much literature as possible. “If you’re not leading from your own reading life, not many students will follow.” (pg 60) So, if you are out of good books to suggest to students based on personal experience, invite others to share their book knowledge and titles. I think even having the students present their favorites can be monumental. • Checking in with your readers. Having brief conferences with students can help a teacher evaluate their developing readers. By meeting with a student, a teacher can not only check-in to see what a student is reading and how they feel about their chosen books, but also offer helpful reading strategies for decoding new types of text. By doing so, the student may increase his/her reading level or the complexity of the text. “Conferring is vital, but it isn’t my only indicator of engagement.” (pg 88) • My final big take away was how insignificant the content of a standardized test can be in regard to what is really important to real world, lifelong readers. Standardized tests assess speed reading which is of little value in the world. These tests fail to tell us students’ real capabilities when reading. Parents, schools, and teachers may use test scores as an indication of a child’s knowledge and skill levels as well as their educational progress. These tests cannot measure resiliency or really give a secure indication of what a student’s actual reading ability is. The tests not only focus on skills that may have little importance in real life reading, but do not measure a student’s capability when reading a text he/she is actually engaged with, nor do these scores accurately express who can read and who cannot. Test scores cannot convey a student’s skill level when independently reading. It also is counterproductive in our effort to get students to fall in love with reading. Overall these tests waste time, and use up valuable time that could have been spent actually becoming better, more engaged readers. |
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Post by Sandy Swenson on Oct 30, 2015 2:47:33 GMT
The one thing I questioned while reading this book was how I could use all this excellent inspiration and information in my career as an elementary school teacher. Kittle draws mostly on her experience as an English teacher of high school seniors. After reading her book I will admit that I am more intrigued by the potential of teaching middle school because it would be possible to use more of her ideas, but what If I never teach middle school? How can I instill that sustained passion for reading in elementary school kids? What kind of texts do I recommend? How can I expect them to establish a strong independent reading life at age nine, ten, or even younger? Is it possible? Katie, I have had the same thoughts. I do not know if I am going to try to teach middle school, but I know for sure that I would like to at least teach the later elementary grades. Part of my reasoning is that I want to work with children who can read and write fairly well. Of course, the students' capabilities will be determined by who they are as individuals as well as the district they are in. I thought throughout the reading about how some of Kittle's examples would work for children who are younger than high school age. I think we should look at it with our "differentiation lens". Pretend that we are working with Kittle's high schoolers, but that they are only at a middle school or elementary reading level. How would we tweak her teachings to work for the different levels? |
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Post by Sandy Swenson on Oct 30, 2015 3:47:34 GMT
Katie, I have had the same thoughts. I do not know if I am going to try to teach middle school, but I know for sure that I would like to at least teach the later elementary grades. Part of my reasoning is that I want to work with children who can read and write fairly well. Of course, the students' capabilities will be determined by who they are as individuals as well as the district they are in. I thought throughout the reading about how some of Kittle's examples would work for children who are younger than high school age. I think we should look at it with our "differentiation lens". Pretend that we are working with Kittle's high schoolers, but that they are only at a middle school or elementary reading level. How would we tweak her teachings to work for the different levels? |
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Post by Sandy Swenson on Oct 30, 2015 3:54:42 GMT
Katie and Brianna: When I began the MAT program, I thought that 3rd and 4th grades were my target, but now I am leaning toward middle school and 6th grade. Kittle’s strategies will translate fairly-easily to middle school instruction. Kittle’s passion and enthusiasm is inspiring. When considering literacy in elementary school, I envision a “takes-a-village-to-raise-a-child” mentality when planting the seeds of book love. Students should experience that literacy-based activities and events are fun and pleasurable… like story time in pajamas and book fairs. I love the idea of young students reading to their pets or stuffed animals. Parents/caregivers/siblings should be encouraged to read to the students every day (my son still loves reading together as a family at bedtime). However, the single-most important person who positively affected my son’s reading future was the librarian at his early learning pre-K school (part of the Rockford Public School system). Miss Diana recognized a budding love of books in Donnie, and she hand-selected award winning books. Based on positive or negative feedback, she suggested additional titles and sent them home in Donnie’s little canvas book bag (the school purchased the bags through a grant… so all students had their own library tote!). I am forever grateful to Miss Diana for sharing her book love! One additional thought is that young students are so observant and notice everything! I think a perfect circle time, whole class activity would be to utilize the Observation-Inference strategy from Manderino et al., and use non-print texts and images for emerging readers. The one thing I questioned while reading this book was how I could use all this excellent inspiration and information in my career as an elementary school teacher. Kittle draws mostly on her experience as an English teacher of high school seniors. After reading her book I will admit that I am more intrigued by the potential of teaching middle school because it would be possible to use more of her ideas, but what If I never teach middle school? How can I instill that sustained passion for reading in elementary school kids? What kind of texts do I recommend? How can I expect them to establish a strong independent reading life at age nine, ten, or even younger? Is it possible? Katie, I have had the same thoughts. I do not know if I am going to try to teach middle school, but I know for sure that I would like to at least teach the later elementary grades. Part of my reasoning is that I want to work with children who can read and write fairly well. Of course, the students' capabilities will be determined by who they are as individuals as well as the district they are in. I thought throughout the reading about how some of Kittle's examples would work for children who are younger than high school age. I think we should look at it with our "differentiation lens". Pretend that we are working with Kittle's high schoolers, but that they are only at a middle school or elementary reading level. How would we tweak her teachings to work for the different levels? |
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Post by Katelyn Elias on Oct 30, 2015 4:02:30 GMT
Monica, thank you for your thoughtful response to my question! I did not think about how elementary school reading might already mirror Kittle's practices in her classroom, but you made some great points. Part of me thinks instilling a love for reading might be easier with elementary school students because reading is still a relatively new and exciting skill for them. I guess part of our task as teachers is to encourage their reading lives in a way that grows and endures even as the texts become more complex. Penny Kittle’s Book Love reads like a genuine, personal love letter to reading, inspiring students to read, and writing while also providing practical ideas and experience based tactics about how to translate this love into ELA classroom instruction. I found that much of what she writes in this book is a living model for how a strong independent reading life informs one’s writing, which was one of the more significant take-aways that stuck with me. Kittle expresses multiple times, in many ways that she is not concerned with the assessment driven mediocrity that pervades the education system; she is more interested in students reading to learn and learning to love reading through any means possible. This means that our main, underlying goal should always be to create lifelong readers who have the habits and stamina to always choose to read (for enjoyment, at the very least) and have the intrinsic motivation to seek new materials when they are in need. As previously mentioned, Kittle not only indulges in exploring her teaching philosophy through theory and inspiration, but also included the nitty-gritty information about what this looks like in an actual classroom. From reaching unengaged readers, to building a classroom library, to establishing instructional balance, to conferencing with students about reading, to assessing readership through well-crafted response prompts, to building writing and reading communities in the classroom, to providing quality book talks, Kittle does offer many applicable ideas to actually making thing happen for teachers and students. The one thing I questioned while reading this book was how I could use all this excellent inspiration and information in my career as an elementary school teacher. Kittle draws mostly on her experience as an English teacher of high school seniors. After reading her book I will admit that I am more intrigued by the potential of teaching middle school because it would be possible to use more of her ideas, but what If I never teach middle school? How can I instill that sustained passion for reading in elementary school kids? What kind of texts do I recommend? How can I expect them to establish a strong independent reading life at age nine, ten, or even younger? Is it possible? Katie, These are great questions. Much of this class focuses on older students. As a mother of a 6-year old, I can only guess that Kittle's practices would have to be applied to more age-appropriate texts and in a much more supported way. The school monitors my child on minutes read, instead of pages, given that the books we are reading are mostly picture books. The concept of improving reading speed is dealt with very gingerly, by insisting on 20 minutes of reading daily, and assuming that fluency will follow from there. This mirrors Kittle's low-pressure approach. Beyond that, I think lower-elementary teachers can do the same conferences, asking students what they read at home and what they like about it, how characters solve problems, etc. If students bring last night's book in to class, the teacher can begin to talk about sentence structure and voice too. At my house, we may read a Mo Willems and a Beatrix Potter one evening. If I were a lower-elementary teacher, I might use these two authors to talk about different "voices" or styles of writing. I also think you could translate her way of classifying by theme to younger children's literature. I could see myself making a poster, mapping all the books we've read aloud in class so far, (democratically) by theme. Additionally, her idea of "book talks" is exactly what Reading Rainbow was, if you guys are old enough to remember that one! I'm glad you asked the questions you did. Remember when Veronica asked for ideas to help her with the "professional development - expand your horizons" assignment on Tuesday? We all needed ideas, and brainstorming as a groups helped us all. Now that you've asked how to translate Kittle's practices to the lower grades, I hope everybody will chime in with their thoughts. |
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Post by Katelyn Elias on Oct 30, 2015 4:16:20 GMT
Karise and Sandy, What a great idea! And it connects so well to what Kittle says about modeling an active reading life. For me personally, this practice would help me stay motivated to ACTUALLY read for enjoyment. However I have to believe, based on what Kittle posits, that reading often with short and long term goals in mind will promote further reading, and eventually result in an insatiable habit. At least, that is what I hoping for! What if the "what I'm reading" idea was taken a step further and teachers also posted a short list of books their planning to read next? I found Kittle's insistence on students keeping an updated "next list" was really important. It just makes sense, doesn't it? You avoid loosing momentum and falling off the reading wagon by always having a new book to move on to. -Katie "When the young see their teacher excited about books...they connect more deeply with themselves, with us, and with the text" (Kittle, 47). In the school I'm working in now, all the teachers have signs on their doors that read, "What I'm reading now..." and it has a piece of velcro with an image of the book they are reading. The sign also says how many books they have read since the beginning of the school year. I think Kittle wants teachers to have an enthusiasm toward reading no matter what content area they are teaching. Karise: I like the idea you highlighted that when students observe their teachers' excitement about reading, the students make deeper, more meaningful connections with the text. I've seen middle school hallways and classroom doors decorated with the very thing you described. If a posted book matches that of a student's recent text, student and teacher were able to have lively conversation about the book and its characters... and the student was able to create and extend a connection to the teacher. Students will see throughout the year via the door signs that reading is a lifelong passion... and not just something one does during class when assigned). |
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Post by Katelyn Elias on Oct 30, 2015 4:35:49 GMT
Monica- Isn't that our constant struggle as preservice teachers? We read about all these wonderful instruction and curriculum ideas that are presented in a way that makes it seem effortless and fool-proof. However, we are not naive enough to believe that all things will come that easily and naturally in the classroom. You are right, all we can do is file these ideas away for a rainy day and return to them for future inspiration. I do remember Kittle sharing a couple of anecdotes that were not so rose colored. Remember Keith? He was a hard worker, but not a natural readers. At one point he tried to move on to a text that was too complex or him, and unfortunately, lost that battle. But he recovered and found a book that was better matched. Perhaps the moral here is that we have to give our students opportunities to choose, reach, and struggle- even if it means they will fail from time to time. I too doubt that finding a well matched book is the simple magical fix, but I do think it's a process that requires patience and perseverance. -Katie Hello! I guess my big takeaway is that students should read a lot more than we are asking them to read, and should read at a variety of difficulty levels. The author clearly has knowledge of a huge number of age-appropriate texts, and that's great. I balk at the idea of living up to her example in that respect. I firmly believe in her methods, including individual conferences, individual goals, and a combination of individual and group readings. I believe in discussions, in pairs, in small groups and as a class, as a means to distribute knowledge and gather assessment information. I like her methods for using reading to teach writing. I wrote my own to-read-next list before I was very far along in the book, I was so inspired by the idea. My difference with the text is specifically with the idea, presented explicitly on page 89 but present throughout the book, that getting students to use their independent reading time to read is a simple matter of matching them with the "right" book. In my observational practicum, I have observed exactly one student ever use the time set aside for independent reading to do any reading. Students get between 40 and 60 minutes a day to read whatever print material they want, during which time the teacher is trying to consult with students on an individual basis, and therefore cannot police the room to ensure compliance. Moreover, enforcement is exactly the opposite of the kind of activity that would encourage students to read willingly. I agree with her every word, but I am super skeptical that it's as easy as she makes it sound. On the contrary, I feel that the glib, information-free acknowledgement I mentioned, at the bottom of page 89, that students might not read given the class time to do so if not matched with that perfect, magical, "gateway" text, only serves to reinforce my preconception that there is very little a teacher can do to ensure independent reading, even in class. I am eager for any advice about teaching reading, as I can see my destiny as a reading teacher crystalizing before my very eyes. The only piece of Kittle's advice I can clearly and definitely visualize myself acting on is the hopefulness and the passion with which she leads. As she mentions, you never know the circumstances into which you will be hired, you never know if you will even have a classroom, but to never give up, to never shrug with the other teachers and repeat their words, "Title I school," can be applied in any situation. I've underlined very thoroughly in this book so that when I have a specific situation to address, I can look back and remind myself of the things I liked about what Book Love said. |
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Post by Sandy Swenson on Oct 30, 2015 4:39:07 GMT
Brianna: I agree with your following takeaway: "It is important to seize moments at the beginning of the year to start strong and get compliance from students when they still care what you think." I was astonished to watch during Day One of my observation in middle school (middle of spring semester) that students were actively participating in daily silent reading and reading for pleasure... before the bell rang and during class. During the very first week of school, the teacher set literacy goals and expectations, but slowly and patiently reinforced "what readers do". All students were required to have a current book with them, and when classroom assignments were complete, the students knew that they should spend this free time reading. She did not care what they were reading, only that they were actively reading. In every class of approximately 25-28 students, there were 2-3 pseudo-readers who continually left their desks to either sharpen their pencils (one corner of the room) or retrieve tissues (other corner of the room). The teacher chalked the actions up to a need for social interaction, and she did not force them back to reading (she said there were some battles she did not care to fight). Kittle shares the following words of wisdom: "I value engagement more than any particular text, and helping students learn to make good choices rests on suggestion, not coercion." My participating middle school teacher had slowly built a positive, no stress classroom community, and the students responded with their respect for her and growing love of reading. I almost feel like by reading this book, I had a cheat sheet into what we really need to know as teachers and readers. I feel as though there were so many important things to take away from this book. • “Students seek an understanding of themselves and others” (pg 49) really resonated with me. Basically, students need a reason to read. I agree that this is really important when creating book loving readers. Sometimes a walk in someone else’s shoes can be relatable to one’s own life, even if the circumstances are different. Characters in books can model both good and bad behavior in respect to life events and hardships. Their experiences can also put things in perspective for us readers. If curriculum planning does not help all students equally, then even forcing readings on students will not work. Everyone does not always need to read on grade level to become better readers. • I think another essential take away from this book is creating and maintaining a useful library in the classroom. Having appropriate literature for several reading levels and interests, organized in a way that makes sense to the students is key in giving them access to literature to continue to develop as readers. • It is important to seize moments at the beginning of the year to start strong and get compliance from students when they still care what you think. • Book talks are imperative to help students get interested in different books. Showing the book, reading a passage, and keeping records of past presented books for students to access are all parts of that. In addition, the best kind of teacher is one that admits fault or weakness and is able to recognize he/she is not “all knowing”. Book talks can be done by colleagues as well as shown from YouTube in order to give the students options and exposure to as much literature as possible. “If you’re not leading from your own reading life, not many students will follow.” (pg 60) So, if you are out of good books to suggest to students based on personal experience, invite others to share their book knowledge and titles. I think even having the students present their favorites can be monumental. • Checking in with your readers. Having brief conferences with students can help a teacher evaluate their developing readers. By meeting with a student, a teacher can not only check-in to see what a student is reading and how they feel about their chosen books, but also offer helpful reading strategies for decoding new types of text. By doing so, the student may increase his/her reading level or the complexity of the text. “Conferring is vital, but it isn’t my only indicator of engagement.” (pg 88) • My final big take away was how insignificant the content of a standardized test can be in regard to what is really important to real world, lifelong readers. Standardized tests assess speed reading which is of little value in the world. These tests fail to tell us students’ real capabilities when reading. Parents, schools, and teachers may use test scores as an indication of a child’s knowledge and skill levels as well as their educational progress. These tests cannot measure resiliency or really give a secure indication of what a student’s actual reading ability is. The tests not only focus on skills that may have little importance in real life reading, but do not measure a student’s capability when reading a text he/she is actually engaged with, nor do these scores accurately express who can read and who cannot. Test scores cannot convey a student’s skill level when independently reading. It also is counterproductive in our effort to get students to fall in love with reading. Overall these tests waste time, and use up valuable time that could have been spent actually becoming better, more engaged readers. |
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