Reading in the Wild Chapter One

Hi friends!

Are you ready for this? Do you have your copy of Reading in the Wild? (affiliate link) Have you read Chapter One: Wild Readers Dedicate Time To Read?

I found myself jotting down LOTS of notes in the margins as I read, and I can’t wait to hear YOUR thoughts! I’ve created a Padlet, to make it easier to share our comments, questions, and ideas. Click here to get to the Padlet, then click the pink plus sign in the bottom right to add your input.

I’m going to try to embed the Padlet in this blog post. I’m not sure how that will work, but let’s give it a shot!

[padlet key=’tnbdllha8bz7′ width=’100%’ height=’480′]

Here are the main questions I had as I read about wild readers dedicating time to read.

1. How do you encourage your teachers to read children’s books?

I think we would all agree that reading makes us better teachers. Right?

Yet very few of the teachers at my elementary school choose to read current children’s literature. They aren’t able to help their students make good book choices because they aren’t familiar with any books to recommend. I see them pointing to classics like Charlotte’s Web or Little House on the Prairie, rather than Wonder or The One and Only Ivan.

Who has been successful at encouraging  TEACHERS to make reading a priority in their busy lives? I’d love to have some ideas for next year! It would be great to develop a thriving community of teacher-readers at my school!

2. How can we help students find “edge time” to read?

On page 13, Mrs. Miller says that students “may require individual counseling to identify pockets of time when they can read.” I know that in my school many students don’t see parents model reading at home. How can we help our students learn to find those “edge times” outside of school when they can read for 10 minutes or so? My only idea so far is having one-on-one conversations with students as they check out books each week.

3. Do you ever host “binge reading” in your library?

On pages 16 and 17, Mrs. Miller talks about “binge reading.” I wonder if our classes would like time to come into the library and use our big space and comfy seats to spend an hour or so reading. Have any of you tried this? What did you do? How did it work?

I know that our students seem excited when they get to do their classroom activities in the library. I need to offer this opportunity to my teachers next year!

4. How do you respond when you see “nonreading” behavior?

Surely I’m not the only librarian who has students visit every single day, more for the exercise than for any book needs. I’m happy for them to visit, but I worry that they are never getting past page 2 in any of the books they’ve checked out.

On pages 29-32, Mrs. Miller talks about nonreading behavior being either habitual or book related. Maybe they haven’t developed the habit of independent reading. Or maybe they don’t have the right book.

If they have a book that’s a good fit, but still need a walk in the middle of each day, maybe we could make arrangements with the classroom teacher for that student to come by the library to tell us about the book so far, or make a prediction about the next chapter, rather than turning the book in and starting over. Have any of you tried that? I think that might work for me, with some of our “active” readers.

5. What else?

What else struck you as you were reading this chapter? Please share on our Padlet, so that we can collaborate in helping our young readers develop wild reading habits!