Wild n’ Out Reading!

In Miller’s first chapter, “Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read,” I found many ideas to sponsor my students’ reading habits that I had never thought of before. Teaching reading seems difficult to me because I think a lot of students already struggle a lot with finding the time to read and finding material that is interesting to them. It’s scary to teach because I fear I will, somehow, turn my students off to reading. I need to make it look cool! Luckily, I have always really enjoyed reading and I am already pretty knowledgable about the different types of books that are out there that my students will enjoy but I could be reading a lot more Young Adult books to recommend to my students.

Teaching reading excites me because I know that once my students find books that interest them they will fall in love with reading the way Donalyn Miller and I have. Last semester I read the book Readicide by Kelly Gallagher which I really recommend to all future teachers! In the book, Kelly discusses the “reading flow,” which is basically when you absolutely lose yourself in a book and cannot stop reading. I honestly believe that once students get into the reading flow once they will get addicted to the feeling of losing yourself in a book they adore. In Readicide, Kelly talks about how teachers in school do not allow their students to get into this reading flow because they assign a lot of reading in chunks. I thought it was awesome that Miller had comfortable bean bag chairs in her classroom and allowed her students so much uninterrupted time to read. Having such a peaceful environment in her classroom sponsors the students’ reading flow and I need that sort of environment in my classroom. I loved how Miller encourages her students to read wherever and whenever they like and I really enjoyed seeing their logs of the places they pulled out their book to read.