Jamie Elliott Blog 2–Setting Fire to the Wild Reader Within You
What are your take-away ideas from the Miller text so far? What ideas are resonating? What seems challenging? What are you most excited about in terms of teaching reading? Most afraid of?
So far, while reading Miller, I have taken away a few important concepts that I may want to use in my future classroom. First of all, I love the stress she puts on encouraging children to chose their own books, engaging them and keeping them interested in reading. Secondly, I like that, in chapter 2, she talks about doing a sort of verbal “book commercial” to get students interested in reading different genres of books. I also like that the way that she chooses the lucky student who will be the first to read that book is based off of a random name drawing–this way every student has a fair shot. Miller utilizes several different methods to keep her students engaged in their reading lives, and I applaud her creativity! Another idea from chapter 2 was creating a preview stack. This is where she recommends several books for a student to look at by physically creating a stack of books for the student to look at. The student then has the power to chose which book sparks his/her interest the most from a reduced stack of books, instead of the entire classroom library. It’s so intriguing to me that Miller knows what kind of readers her students are, and what types of books they will like– I hope I can acquire that skill when I am a teacher!
As far as my fears and desires for teaching reading, I have a few. First of all, I am excited to do what I previously mentioned that Miller has succeeded in doing– being able to recommend a book to a child that I know that child will appreciate and love. I think that their is nothing cooler than knowing that child’s interests and tying that together with a book. My fears? It’s hard to say, since I have never taught a class. I am mostly scared that the impending technology in this world does not take over childrens’ love and passion for books, and I hope that if that is the case, that I might remind them why books are so crucial in this world. I think the thing I am most excited for, when I become a teacher, is seeing a student progress throughout the year, and also watching that thing that they do not understand “click” when they finally do get it. I want to be the reason for that connection, and I want my future students to look back on school, and have good memories of not only their teachers (and me) but also the curriculum and learning.