Writing About Reading

The great thing about having a whole bunch of smart family members in the education field is the abundance of resources that we have amongst each other.  My sister Tin and I have had many many conversations about teaching literacy.  Over the summer, I shared with her that one of my goals for this school year was to get the kiddos better at writing about their reading.  She recommended this book Notebook Connections by Aimee Buckner.  It's all about getting children to think critically about the books they read, and writing down their thoughts.  After reading it by the pool in Vegas in July, I was really inspired to go into my classroom and teach them these different strategies right from the start of the school year, so we could build good notebook habits.  Unfortunately, my school didn't have the kind of spiral bound notebooks I preferred (I know, I'm picky!), so we had to put an order in, and it took until November for them to arrive.  

Now that I've started to implement these strategies into their reading time, the quality of their journal writing has shown good progress, and it's only been a little more than a month!  Reading is such an abstract skill.  It's not like writing and math where we can see exactly all that we know.  Having the children journal about their reading has helped turn reading from abstract to concrete.  The strategies that I've learned from the book and used in the classroom have allowed the children and I to actually SEE what the children know about their books, and how we can challenge them to dig deeper.   In addition, they really ENJOY taking time to journal about their reading. 

For any reading teacher out there, I highly recommend this book.  It's an easy read, with high leverage strategies.  Get the kiddos writing about their reading and watch them take off!