Routman states that when it comes record keeping of students
reading, “Respect parents’ busy lives.”
This speaks to me both as a parent and a teacher. We all want our students to be accountable
for their reading, but how do we do this without taking away the pleasure of
reading? I agree with Routman that recording
minutes read and signing of reading logs takes the joy out of reading and the
accountability off the students. It is
important for teachers to find ways to encourage students to want to share
their own reading lives with their families, rather than just fulfilling a
reading requirement by getting a log signed.
Sharing our own reading lives with our students seems like a great first
step in accomplishing this goal.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Jinger Willard Blog Post 3: Routman Chapter 3: Share Your Reading Life
Routman’s chapter, “Sharing Your Reading Life” provided me
with many good ideas for doing this with my own students. I love the idea of having blank writing
notebooks for the class to record quotes from books they are reading. What a great way to have a “discussion” about
books whenever the mood strikes. I
think that this could be done on a blog or Padlet just as well. The more opportunities and ways we can find
for our students to share their own reading lives, the more excited they will
be about sharing. Even though I am not
teaching my students reading this year, I still want to know about what they
are reading. Since I don’t get to
conference with them, a notebook, blog or Padlet might be just the tool I need
to keep a finger on my students’ reading interests while sharing my own with
them.
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I believe using the Padlet or blog as a way to interact with your students about what they are reading is a wonderful idea! This will help you connect and build relationships with them, as well. I struggle with the whole reading log idea, too. I would want to hold them accountable, but can we take their word for it? Do we trust them that much? I see no problem with students recording what they read. I think often we expect them to do so much with what they read like write a summary, etc. that for many students it does take the joy out of it! We just have to find the right balance for each student so they are reading as much as they can without avoiding it because of what they have to do afterwards!
ReplyDeleteHi Jinger,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you focused in on Routman's suggestion to carefully consider how what we do in our classroom with our independent reading practices effects how our students and many times, their parents feel about reading. We want to create "book love" and a reading life that they enjoy. If our practices are solely focused on accountability and achievement, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because our students read less because they resent it instead of reading more. I appreciate how you are looking into ways to promote depth verses coverage like the reading notebooks. Thank you! Dawn