Daily 5 Book Study

I'm currently working my way through The Daily 5 by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser for the second time this summer.  I read it first on my own, and am now participating in a book study with other teachers from my grade level team and around the country.  Chapter 1 was due yesterday and it has been so helpful to read the thoughts and suggestions from others on the blog set up for this book study.

Chapter 1

I appreciated the Sisters' honesty throughout this chapter, outlining their progress from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction within their literacy curriculum.  I could match myself up to many of their experiences, feeling like I began the year on a much more teacher-centered mark than I ended it on.  My understanding of and comfort level with guided reading grew greatly over the course of the year, allowing my reading instruction to improve tremendously from day 1 to day 180. 

I identified closely with a question the sisters posed within this chapter: "Did things just keep the kids busy, or were they engaged in literacy tasks that will make a difference in their literate lives?"  I'm afraid that too often during the last year I was providing activities to students that, although aligned with our content standards and centered on reading strategies, were not truthfully improving them as readers.  I am eager for that to change this school year.

A second point I took from this chapter was the importance of explicit teaching and practicing of behaviors.  I have read this idea and understood it from many sources, but few as directly related to reading instruction.  Practicing each behavior and expectation until they become habits will help reduce the interruptions each of us face within the classroom due to off-task behavior.  How helpful that will be!

I am eager to continue rereading this book with a critical eye, knowing that my literacy instruction is going to be greatly benefited by both my own reflections and reading the thoughts of others.

The Book Whisperer

I have finished The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller!  What a fast read!  Donalyn's thoughts and experiences flow together so smoothly that it only took me two days of reading to get through the book.  Not that this was a book to rush through - I have lots of underlining and post-it notes marking thoughts I appreciated or pages I want to revisit. 
I love that Donalyn's classroom is set up for reading because she knows that learning happens through reading.  So many of us get caught up trying to find the best classroom set-up for learning to happen and delegate a corner of the room or a bulletin board to 'reading' when really our focus should be flipped.  If the classroom is organized as an environment for reading, learning will be occurring!

Although I will have to tweak the ideas I have gathered from the pages of this book to meet the needs of my classroom and students, I am really thinking now about my classroom library set-up and the format I use for reading journals.  My 4th graders had reading journals last year that included their reading logs and space for them to write responses to me, but those journals, as sorry as I am to admit it, were one thing that just did not work during my first year of teaching.  My kids were not connected to their journals and I had a hard time keeping up with 23-27 response letters each week and then even every 2 weeks.  I'm hoping some of the ideas I have gathered from Donalyn combined with the book studies I will be doing yet this summer will help me develop a better strategy for Reading Journals.  Believe me, I know they are an important tool to help students track their reading and share their thinking - I know!  It broke my heart that they didn't work with my class last year and I am set on making improvements to that practice this coming school year.

I would recommend picking up Donalyn's book sometime this summer - it may just change your thinking about reading instruction in the classroom or provide a thought to help tweak a program that is already soaring.

"The reality is that you cannot inspire others to do what you are not inspired to do yourself." - Donalyn Miller in The Book Whisperer