Reading in the Wild
One of my favorite lines from the book is, “We are teaching students to be test takers, yet we still aren’t markedly improving their test scores.” This stuck out to me because I feel like education is so based on teaching to pass tests, not teaching to learn. I believe the best way to improve these test scores and to improve learning is to promote reading.
The idea of a “wild reader” is interesting to me. I grew up in a family of wild readers so I always wanted to read as a child. My mom is an English teacher so she constantly has a book in her hand. My dad is a Biology teacher and he is constantly reading books about sports or nature. This reminded me of my special pal that I was given through CAVE last semester. He did not have that support at home so he never read. On Fridays when homework was checked off, he never had the reading portion signed. The assignment was to read two books to an adult and have them sign. You would think that is a simple task, but for this student it was not. That is why it is important to not only show children the importance of reading, but also adults and the families that your students come from.
I am excited to help students and to be the support that some of them need. I want them to have fun and feel like school is a place that they can be themselves. My main goal is to create a classroom where everyone enjoys learning. Going to school should be fun, not a chore.
I am super nervous for my first couple years of teaching. I feel like there are going to be things that I am not ready for! I know that after a while I will have it down, but in the beginning it will be scary. How will I know what to do for an entire year?! This scares me. How do I know what to even do on the first day of school? Or the last? Or what about holidays? I hope I can find a mentor teacher to walk me through these things.
One Reply to “Reading in the Wild”
Jenna, I love the quote you chose from Reading in the Wild. I agree whole heartedly that reading can help improve test scores. Comprehension is key in any subject, and so we need to make our students good readers.
I also grew up around wild readers. I think you and I are both fortunate to have been around this, because it gave us a positive outlook on reading! My mom reads books constantly. She cannot put them down. Recently she found out that she can download library books onto her iPad, and so she has become an even more avid reader! I don’t really know how she reads so many when she has so much stuff to do, but after reading Miller’s first chapter I can now see that it is because she reads any chance she can get.
I think it’s cool that you had such an eye opening experience with your special pal last semester. To be able to see how that student’s reading habits differed from other wild readers is such a great experience for you when trying to help correct the situation. I hope that student has come to love reading at least a little bit more.
I also agree that school should be fun. That’s why I love the idea of doing reading logs based on time spent reading and not pages read! I think this is a much more beneficial way to get students reading. Most of the time when they start reading they can’t stop, so to not give them set pages will hopefully encourage this ‘binge reading’.
I think it’s great to see that you are nervous for your first few years as a teacher too. I try not to think about it too much because I get a bit overwhelmed and it scares me too! I know this is what I am meant to do, but I think just being new at it and not really having the experience of teaching my own class can be a little scary. I know we will be great teachers, but it can be scary!