I have read many great books about helping students succeed in reading over the years. Two of my favorites are The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell and The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Both books state that one of the best ways to become a better reader is to read. Miller says "Once students catch the reading bug, they will to to great lengths to find time to read." As a teacher, I want to make sure each of my students catch this reading bug for LIFE!
In the Book Whisperer Mills challenges her students to read 40 books during the school year. This following excerpt from her website article The 40 Book Challenge Revisited gives background for her reasoning of 40 and the importance of reading across different genres - "Everybody reads here. Let’s get started. Our direct influence on students’ reading lives lasts 40 weeks—36 weeks of school and 4 weeks of school vacation. Setting high expectations (roughly a book a week) communicates that reading is ongoing and continues from the first day of school to the last—hopefully longer. Students who read the most will always outperform the students who don’t read much (Krashen, 2004). *Strong readers have lots of reading experiences. You need to be a good all-around reader. Encouraging students to read widely—sampling books from every genre—improves their reading ability by expanding their reading experiences. If you spend every day working on your jump shot, you’ll improve your jump shot. To be a strong all-around player, you must practice passing, guarding, and dribbling, too. To be a strong reader, you must practice reading poetry, fiction, nonfiction, wordless books, graphic novels, blog posts—a little bit of everything." It is my goal for each student to read at least one book independently each week this year, from the first week of school to the last. I know that together with teachers, parents, and students rooting for each other this can be accomplished by all! |