Lisa Littleton Blog Post 3 Reading Essentials Chapter 3 Share Your Reading Life Reggie Routman

Reading Chapter 3 was an eye opener for me.  I do tell my students why I read.  I think it is important for my students to know why I read.  How can I expect my students to love to read if I don’t model and encourage a love for reading?  For me, reading is a stress reliever, it gives me comfort, it makes me think, and it answers questions and takes me to faraway places. 

Telling my students what I read hasn’t crossed my mind.  They need to know I read a variety of text, too.  Routman suggests that we let our students in on the fact that we often know what we will read next and that we should encourage our students to be thinking ahead about their own reading choices.  “What is your “now” book?” and “What is your “next” book?” are great questions to promote thinking about reading choices.

I agree with Routman that as teachers we need to examine what we do as a reader and make our thinking and practices visible to our students.  Students admire their teachers and want to imitate them.  When we make reading explicit to our students, their reading lives expand in many directions.  We need to explain how to choose a book to read.  Recommendations from friends are a source for deciding what I read.  When my students share information about the book they are reading or have read, I would like for them to recommend or not recommend their book to their partner.  I think this would be a good starting place for book recommendations.

Keeping a reading record is a great way to begin to keep track of my own reading.  I would like to start a record for our class readings.  Keeping this record would let me know which genre I need to add to the class readings and teach my students a way they too can keep their own record.