Blog 3 – Cyrill Somera

The series I chose to read is, “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. This book is about Klaus, Sunny, and Violet, the Baudelaire children. Their parents died in a tragic fire that destroyed everything they owned. The three orphans are forced to live with their suspicious uncle, Count Olaf, whom they have never even heard of before. They are mistreated by their uncle and live miserably.

I read this book when I was in fifth grade and I don’t remember it at all. Reading this book now, as a college student, I think I understand the humor of this book a little bit more. I do think the book is awfully dark, but I don’t think young readers would necessarily understand how dark this story really is. I chose to begin at the beginning of the series with book one. This book is very mysterious, which I enjoy and I think children would love. This book was unique because the author uses big words, that younger readers wouldn’t understand, and defines them in the sentence. The story itself is very well written and easy to understand. It has a lot of suspense in it so readers definitely will not get bored and it keeps them on their toes. There are many illustrations included in the book itself and I think this is great so readers can picture the characters in their head. I would definitely encourage young readers to read this book.

 

The Miller text hits a lot of key points in trying to get students to become readers. She stresses that reading can not be something forced onto a student, but rather incorporated into their everyday lives. She even mentions how reading logs aren’t necessary. As a student myself, I remember having to keep track of my reading through a reading log. I thought this was the most horrible thing because I had to have it signed by my parents and I had to read for at least 30 minutes a day. For a lot of kids it’s hard for them to sit down for 30 minutes. Miller mentions how even just reading for a couple minutes throughout the day is good. The Reading Itinerary that was described in the book was a perfect alternative to a Reading Log. The students aren’t forced to read for a certain amount of time a day so it gives them more freedom to read. I really like how Miller is trying to get her students to want to read and not force it onto them. I think a lot of kids think that reading is forced onto them because of reading assignments and reading logs, which makes them not want to read at all. As a future teacher, I want to make my students excited to read and for them to know that they are able to read what they want to when they want to. I think in this class what I will definitely use in my own classroom is the Makes. Makes are a great way to use material from a reading and implement them in a classroom without reading test, which I didn’t even enjoy as a student. The Miller text is definitely changing the traditional ways of teaching reading to students.