Learning to Love Reading

I want all of my students to love reading by the end of fifth grade. I want reading to be something they do for fun in their free time.

My first step in this is to show them my love of reading. Now, if I'm being honest, I don't read a whole lot. The way I talk to the kids though, they probably think I go home every night and read several chapters. I want them to think this, so they may want to do that too.

Right at the beginning of the year I decided to figure out what my students like to read. I had them fill out a book interest survey. 

After I read through their surveys, I picked two books I thought each of them might like and left them out on their desks for the next morning. Then it was up to them to pick one or both of the books to try reading. I told them they need to at least try one or two chapters from a new book. 

I could already see the excitement about reading building. The next step was them sharing what they are reading. In my classroom I have a bulletin board dedicated to free reading and read aloud.

 The students each have a book where they write what book they are reading. This serves a couple purposes. One, when I conference with them I can look up at the bulletin board first and know which book we will be talking about. Two, the students can see what each other is reading and use that as a way to get recommendations on their next book. 

My last technique to encourage reading is easily the most expensive. I have a book buying problem. I love getting new books for my classroom. This gets the kids excited about reading because there's often a new pack of books every other month. I do little book talks when the books come by reading the back and telling them anything I know about it. Then the kids can ask for it, almost like an auction. In this first week of school I already put in an order for new books and started talking them up to my students to build their anticipation. 

Pretty much my biggest suggestion to teachers who want to get their kids to be excited about reading would be to get excited about reading yourself and show the students that excitement!

End of the Year Blues

It seems everyone is excited for summer break. I get it. Time away, stress relief, fun, vacations. I'm a little less excited because I still work full time in the summer and get zero days off in between school and my summer program starting. I also don't get too pumped because I absolutely love my job, and this was a very special year in my room. I know I'm a new teacher so maybe this love will wear off in the coming years, but for now I will embrace it. Now, not everyone was ready for the school year to be over, and surprisingly that group of hesitaters included many of my students. The last day of school was filled with tears from both the kids and me.
I was tearing up for many reasons. Of course I will miss each child from my room, but even more than that, I will and already do miss the community we built. I miss hearing about their weekends. I miss how they understood and appreciated my sarcasm. I miss how they weren't embarrassed to tell me, and plaster all over my whiteboard, how much they loved me, even though they are almost in middle school.

I miss how comfortable everyone was with each other and with me. I really miss how I could totally be myself. I shared my own weekends with them, good or bad. I made jokes and laughed with them. I listened to their stories and connected to them with my own experiences. I gave them a high five or hug and listened to their answer to the question of the day at the end of each school day so I could learn more about them and show them that they matter to me. Yes, I will get new students. Yes, I will try to create the same culture and atmosphere next year. This was a special group though, and we all will never be together in that classroom again. That is the hardest thing to accept. We will never all be together again, in our room, in our community. That cannot be replicated.