The Book Whisperer

This past school year I felt like I was in a fog.  I taught two large groups of fifth graders, who were amazing.  But, I felt like with the new Common Core curriculum, new testing, new requirements from my county, new evaluation system, and growing accustomed to having BOTH of my own kids in "big" school and sports full-time made me feel like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  **Bad visual image -- sorry!**  Anyway, I have tried to really reflect on this past year.  I have made a list of what I did that seemed to work well, get my students motivated and thinking, and help my students grow and learn.  I've also made a list of the things that I do not feel were successful or beneficial for my students.  I hope that through my reflections, I can make changes, tweaks, or eliminations to better myself as a teacher.  Every summer I try to find a new teacher resource book to read, to help me grow as an educator.  I LOVE Beth Newingham.  If you're an elementary teacher (grades 1-5), then I highly recommend that you check out her site here.  She is also a Scholastic Teacher Advisor and you can check out her blog for them here.  I have always loved how she conducts Reader's Workshop and how well it aligns with Fountas & Pinnell's book, Guiding Readers & Writers (Grades 3-6): Teaching, Comprehension, Genre, & Content Literacy.  I have modeled many different learning activities and structures after Beth Newingham's classroom.  Near the end of the school year, I was reading one of Beth's posts for Scholastic on Assessment in Reading Workshop, where she recommended the book, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop, by Franki Sibberson & Karen Szymusiak.  I immediately headed to Amazon and read information on the book and did the whole "see inside this book" tour, where I got to view a few random pages.  I added it to my cart, but waited to order it closer to summer.  When I went back into Amazon to place my order, I noticed the section of the website that suggests other books in the same category as the ones recently viewed.  This led me to The Book Whisperer by Donnalyn Miller.  I added it to my cart too and placed my order.  Within four days, my two books were here and within 24-hours, I had read the entire book by Donnalyn Miller.  The Book Whisperer is phenomenal!  It is what I've always believed about reading, but just thought that my reading instruction must be more tailored and filled with "stuff" for my students to do.  I always worked to create units on novels and I labored over reading and creating questions to go with every chapter of every book I used in my reading groups.  I searched out worksheets that taught every skill that has ever been mentioned in any reading workbook.  Instead, The Book Whisperer begs teachers to utilize the actual practice of reading to teach students.  WOW!  Or maybe I should say DUH!  I have my own 9 year old, who is a great reader, but doesn't enjoy reading.  It dawned on me that he loves it when he's actually doing it, but we rarely make time for him to read without distractions.  I have already began setting aside time each and every night for each of us in our house to read.  I've began asking my boys, "What book do you want to read next?"  and we've began discussing some of the good books that we've all read over the last few weeks.  My husband has even joined in, reading the various autobiographies from the members of the Robertson family of Duck Dynasty fame.  I have already realized that if my family of four can increase our reading, our discussion of what we're reading, and our enjoyment of reading in a matter of 4 weeks, then I can only imagine what impact this structure and approach will have on my class, when it is implemented for 40 weeks during a school year.  I am making plans to do an overhaul of my reading instruction this year and get back to the basics - READING and spending time talking about the books we're reading.  I am super excited about Reader's Workshop this year.  I am excited about making my instruction more student-centered, and I am excited about getting my students excited about reading!
I am finishing up the second book from my Amazon order and it is also extremely helpful.  I will definitely be implementing many of the assessment strategies presented in this text, during the upcoming year.  I will share more about this book in my next post.  If you've read The Book Whisperer and/or implemented any of the strategies discussed in the book, please let me know what has worked or how you've modified it for your classroom.  I am gathering ideas for the new school year!