Getting your child to LOVE reading!

Photo credit: Hope King of Elementary Shenanigans 

Reading. One of my favorite topics!!! Why? Reading is the single greatest determining factor in your child's success in school...and in life. Reading is what opens doors to new opportunities, allows us to communicate, escape into another "world," and learn about the world around us. Reading is used in EVERY subject in school as well as in almost every activity in life (try driving around or eating at a restaurant without reading anything). I promise you that this year I will do everything in my power to support your child in not only learning reading strategies, but also to help them LOVE reading. 

So, what are my beliefs about reading?

• To get kids to love reading, you need to let them pick what they read!!!
• Kids need to build reading habits:
• Know how to find books and how/where to find ideas for picking books
• Choose books that are a good fits, both for interest and readability
• Build stamina for reading
• Read THROUGH the books we pick
• Repeat this process over and over in order to build qualities of being a reader that will last beyond 4th grade
• Reading needs to be modeled and supported at school and at home
• Reading needs to be enjoyable, without strings attached. No logging minutes or petty projects. (Do you know any adults who keep track of the number of minutes they read for pleasure?)

What I expect:

• This year I'm challenging my students to read 40 books. Why 40? Because I want them to build reading habits, read often, and read widely...I want them to catch the reading bug!!!
• I will encourage students to read a variety of genres (I have "challenge lines" on the Genre Graph in their Page Turners book). Why? Let me explain using one of my favorite foods. I love  pizza and could totally eat it all the time. Pizza, however, is not great as an exclusive meal choice. It needs to be supplemented with fruit, veggies, milk...you get the idea. As readers we do naturally gravitate to our favorites, but we still need to be able to read for other purposes. When my son was little it was my job to introduce new, unfamiliar foods, and now as a teacher it's my job to introduce new kinds of reading material. 
• Students need to be able to talk about what they are reading. Once we have built our reading stamina and reading habits we will begin writing about our reading in our Page Turners notebooks and discussing together at Book Club Meetings. These were the highlight of our year last year!!! 

Below is a picture of two anchor charts that we're currently using and referring to often as we build stamina for reading and our ability to stay tuned in to what we're reading.