Category: Reading

Reading, students, summer

Help Us Create the Best Summer Reading List Ever!

Pernille Ripp
This year has been the year of reading; I don’t think I have ever read so many fantastic books, I don’t think I have ever spent so much money on books, and I couldn’t be happier.  Except now I am faced with a problem; my 5th graders are starting to seriously ponder what they should read over the summer and I running out of ideas.  I have about 30 books to read myself and I have been piling books on their desks but we need a seriously massive list to get us through the summer.  So please help us by filling out any of these boxes on our form.  Pass it around; ask your students, your colleagues  your favorite librarians, and we promise to share all of the results.

Please help us make the best summer reading list ever!

Reading, reflection

Should We Force Students to Read Certain Books?

Pernille Ripp
There I went and did it again, tripped myself up and got lost.  Once again forgot what my students had told me, thinking I knew best.  Thinking I was doing the teacher thing to do, whatever that is.  And yet, that nagging feeling of something not being right just wouldn’t go away.  So last night I tweeted

And soon, my own fear was confirmed.  Many agreed; when we dictate genres it is almost the same as dictating books.  What we want is for kids to read widely (Thanks Donalyn!), not selectively  and whenever we mess with choice we may end up turning kids away from reading completely.

Yet, my reasoning remains; I want to expose students to new genres.  As one student told me yesterday, if she had not been “forced” to read a historical fiction book she would have never known how much fun they would be.  And yet, it is the whole “force” I have such a problem with. I was forced to read certain books in school and I hardly ever enjoyed them.  I would read them as fast as I could, slowing down only enough to answer the mandatory question sheet and then resume the book I really wanted to read.  Just the act of “having to” read a certain book ensured that it never made my top ten list of best books read that year.  I don’t want to do the same to my students.

Yet, as teachers, there seems to be times when we have to “force” things on students.  Otherwise we worry they will not be well-rounded learners.  They might not be ready for the next step in their education, they might not be ready for the adult world.  Or will they?  Can we let students choose their own education and still become successful adults within a public school setting?  I don’t have the answer.  

So I will call a morning huddle today, lay my fears on the line, my dilemma  and see what the kids come up with.  Perhaps we will just read whatever we want.  Perhaps we will have 4 free choice books and 2 from new genres.  Perhaps, I will ask them to just read as much as they can in the limited time we have left.  I don’t know what will happen but I know my students will have ideas if I only listen. I know they will set me back on track, they always do. 

Be the change, Reading, reflection

What the #Nerdybookclub Taught Me About Reading

Pernille Ripp

I have always been slightly nerdy, ask my oldest friends and they will tell you stories of eye rolls whenever I discussed the latest sci fi flick I couldn’t wait to see.  Or get me started on a favorite author and watch.  I haven’t ever been a geek, I would have to be really good at math for that, but a nerd, that I could embrace.  My adulthood didn’t change my nerdy ways but only sophisticated them.  I could now pass ubernerdy things of as cool and stand behind them tall.  And when being a nerd became kind of cool, I was so nerdy, that even my husband still laughed a little bit at me when i got too out there.

So when I fell into the Nerdy Book Club I knew I was at home.  All of these book lovers in one group, oh and the hashtag and the chats; I was home.  And yet even I could not have realized how much the Nerdy Book Club would change me and the way I teach.

So The Nerdy Book Club taught me that

  • It is okay to get really, really excited about a book and want to give it to everyone I meet.  I am thinking of you “The One and Only Ivan.”
  • It is ok to want to talk books with friends, even if those friends are 20 years younger than you.
  • It is ok to bring in my books to school and perhaps sneak a chapter or two during recess.
  • It is ok to weed out my library and finally get rid of the books that no one has touched, no one will touch, and to give them to others who might.
  • It is ok to not do book talks.
  • It is ok to not do whole group books unless it is so deep and so rich that the whole class will actually stay engaged.
  • It is ok to tweet out pictures of new books you have received because you are so gosh darn excited about reading them.
  • It is ok to tweet authors and hope they will respond to you.
  • It is ok to have your class tweet authors and hope even harder that they will respond to them.
  • It is ok to have a pile of books beside your bed that never quite seems to diminish and yet entices you to sit down and read every time you pass by it.
  • It is ok to change from a clothes shopaholic to a bookaholic as long as you don’t go broke.
  • It is ok to watch your home library start to bleed into your classroom library because some of your kids are ready for a bigger challenge.
  • It is ok to do book challenges as long as they do not suck.
  • It is ok to not love a book and tell students that.
  • It is ok to make book trailers rather than book projects.
  • It is ok to think books, breathe books, talk books even if no one is listening or cares.
  • It is ok to have the reading taste of a 5th grade boy.
  • It is ok to think that reading and loving books is the most important thing we can ever model for our students and our own children.

Thank you Nerdy Book Club

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Reading, students

This Is Why We Hate Reading

Pernille Ripp
“…Mommy, just one more book…’ Thea is yelling me from her bedroom after I have tucked her in, read her a book and handed her 3 more to “read.”  The book lover in me shrugs …”Just one, then sleep.”  I smile, we are a house of readers.

“…Mrs.Ripp, just 5 more minutes?”  My students are giving me pleading eyes, they want 5 more minutes to read their books even though they know it is the end of the day and really we should be packing up.  We are a class of readers,

And yet, the thought keeps nagging me.  Why do kids start to hate reading?  What will happen to Thea when she enters school, will she want just one more book, 5 more minutes?  Or will she become like many students; reluctant to read, hesitant to dream about more books?  Will my students lose their love when they go to middle school?

So I ask my students; what makes kids hate reading?  Their first response fills my heart, “But we don’t hate reading, Mrs. Ripp, not this year.”  So I prod and ask them why not?  What do you think I could do to make you hate reading?  What do you think happens in middle school where we seem to lose kids as readers.  They journal about it and then ask to go back to their books.

Reading their responses, I am not surprised   Kids do not want to be told what to read.  They do not want books assigned.  They do not want to sit in small groups and discuss a shared book. They want choice.  They want freedom.  But they also want a little bit of guidance.  Many of my students write how it is important for teachers to read and know which books to recommend.  Many of my kids realize that sometimes they will have to read things they do not want to but wonder whether it can be a short text rather than a guided book group..

One child journals about how teachers should always read the books first and then try to think how it will feel for a student to read it; to experience it the way they do.  Then they bring up the time factor; give us time to read.  We do sports, we want to spend time with our family and sometimes we are reading another book outside of school.  Reduce our homework so that we can read.  If you really believe in reading; invest in it as a class.

One student makes me smile with their answer; “Many teachers say they love reading but then their face is all gloomy when they teach it.”  Yes, perhaps we as teachers love to read but forget to bring in that infectiousness to our classrooms.  Bring in the passion, it’s contagious.

In the end, I was not surprised  not too much anyway.  We know how to make kids hate reading because it is the same things that make us hate reading as adults.

So take my students’ advice
Love reading yourself
Give them time to read
Know your books
Share your passion
and give them choice

Then see what happens.

Update; My students heard I had blogged about their responses and they wanted to add these two thoughts:

  • Don’t do reading logs.  Ever.  Trust them instead to read.  The logs get falsified anyway and end up being homework for parents.
  • Reconsider the classics.  we may have thought we know all the classics and that students should read them and yes, I have a love of classics as well, but add new ones to that list.  The One and Only Ivan will be a classic one day just like Charlotte’s Web so why not include that one?
Reading

Having A Classroom Library is Not Enough

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

If I had squinted my eyes, I am sure I could have seen the dust.  Looking at my classroom library, I knew something had to be done; those books were not making it into the hands of students and I think I knew what was missing; me.

I had expected that if I stocked the library with a lot of books that students would flock to it, eager to browse all of the titles.  I thought if I labeled everything in meticulous bins that the labels would grab their interest.  I thought if I turned a few books out the students would snag them up.  I was wrong.

Having a lot of books meant exactly that;  I had a lot of books.  Having bins meant students put books back into them, however most of the time it was not the right bin.  Turning books out meant students did the same rather than put books back where they belonged.

And there was no love in my library, there was no excitement, just books in baskets hoping someone would read them.  I didn’t introduce the library, I didn’t sell it, I didn’t visit it.  It was just a corner of our room.

Not anymore.  Now the library is busy.  Books are flipped through.  Bins are pulled out on the floor.  Books are taken when they are turned out.  What changed?  Me.  I made it a point to talk about the library.  I made it a point to pull bins out and show students stacks of books they might love.  I made a big deal of placing new books into the library, showing book trailers, sharing my review, asking for guest reviewers.  The library is now something we cherish and uphold.  Students from other rooms borrow books from it as well, they know they can probably find something.

Gone is the dust, gone are the broken bins and broken spines.  Instead books and lots of love; for reading, for sharing, and for exploring.

Be the change, Reading, reflection

Must We Be Passionate Readers to Teach Reading?

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

I am standing in the book store staring at all of the books I want to read and bring into my classroom when a boy’s voice cuts through my thoughts, “Dad, can I get this book?  Mr. Wischer says it is one of his favorites…”  I immediately begin to smile as I poke my head over the shelf, you see, Mr. Wichser happens to be my 5th grade colleague, a brand new teacher, and obviously an influencer of book choices.  The dad agrees and the student happily leaves the kid section, excited to read his new book.

I share the story with Brandon and once again look at my own pile of books eager to get home and get them read so that I can place them into the hands of my students.  What I read matters, I know this because my students have told me so when they ask me for another book recommendation.  At the moment they rely more on me than each other and this year I am finally up for that challenge as I consume more books than I ever have.

And yet, I don’t see many teachers discuss the books they are reading at the moment.  I know we are so busy as teachers, I know we all have so much to implement and do, I know we have lives of our own.  But where is the shared passion for reading?  Where are the book recommendations for our classrooms?  Are we too busy to read or are we too busy to recommend?

It leads to my final thoughts which I have no answer for; should we mandate that teachers of reading be passionate readers?  Or at the very least stay on top of the current books appropriate and engaging for our grade level?  Can we go so far as to demand teachers who teach reading to actually read?

It seems that if you are a middle school teacher in a certain topic you are passionate about that topic.  After all, why would you ever sign up to teach math if you hated it?  But at the elementary level we don’t have to be passionate about it all or so it seems.  We can pick and choose about what we would love to teach and then hope we mask it well enough so that students don’t pick up on our own disdain.  We don’t have to like math or science and we don’t have to have read the books that line our classroom walls.  But it that ok?  Can we truly teach a passion for reading if we do not have it ourselves?

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