Our Learning Lives

In Routman's book Reading Essentials, at the end of chapter two she tells a story of a dear friend who enjoyed life, ending with how her friend reminds her how "important it is to celebrate our learning lives." I want to be constantly celebrating and showing my learning life to my students. Whether we are doing science or art and all the other subjects in between I think it is important for students to see the joy in learning. As a teacher this means, for me, that I will need to know my students, to engage them in things of interest for them and not just do activities of interest for me. In the end students will only be life long learners if they see the joy in learning and are allowed to celebrate it in class and out of class.

E and His "Just Right" Book

I met with E today and his "just right book" was way to easy. We read over 1000 words. He only made three errors. It is important to have student autonmy in the classroom but students still need to be challenged. When do is it ok for E to have a "just right book" and one that he is more comfortable with? The challenge is to find this balance so that students are still challenged yet have choice in the classroom. Will I be able to know my students well enough that all have a just right book but at the same to have books that they can read and just enjoy and be comfortable.

I know for myself I need to pick up a $6.99 romance novel that can be read in three hours which I don't have to use any brain power to read, after reading academic texts and informative articles throughout the quarter. Should students in the classroom be given this "time off" as well?

My New Reading Buddy

My new literacy buddy is awesome! E has two brothers and doesn't just like to read, he LOVES to read. Today we had a written conversation in which we do not talk but communicate by writing back and forth on the same piece of paper. I asked him if he celebrated Halloween in which he replied yes and that he was a vampire. Then I asked him if he got any candy which he replied (this makes me laugh again just thinking about it), bar graph! with an arrow pointing down to his bar graph of lots of chocolate and a small amount of other candy. Unfortunately he wrote he does not like chocolate.

I enjoyed this activity with my buddy because I was able to see his writing skills as well as breaking the ice and getting to know him better right away. He read to me fairly easily and I am interested to see what his "just right" book will be tomorrow when we meet again.