The Book Whisperer

What are the big ideas?

1. Creating Personalized Reading Recommendations: The Book Whisperer emphasizes the importance of understanding students' personal experiences, interests, and backgrounds to make effective reading recommendations. Teachers are encouraged to use student surveys and engage in conversations with students about their preferences, rather than relying on traditional reading lists or one-size-fits-all approaches.
2. Balancing Quiet Reading Time and Discussions: The book advocates for creating a classroom environment that encourages reading in various settings, including quiet environments and opportunities for natural dialogue about books. Teachers are encouraged to find a balance between these two approaches, recognizing the benefits of both for fostering student engagement and building relationships.
3. Encouraging Reading Freedom: The book emphasizes the importance of giving students choice and autonomy in their reading experiences. This includes creating a classroom library, setting aside time for independent reading, and encouraging students to engage in conversations about books. The author argues that this approach empowers students to see themselves as capable readers and inspires a lifelong love of reading.
4. Modeling Teachers' Reading Habits: The book highlights the significant impact teachers' own reading attitudes and habits have on their students' reading development. Teachers are encouraged to share their struggles and challenges in reading, stay current on recommended literature and industry sources, and engage in book clubs or online reading communities.
5. Encouraging Lifelong Reading Habits: The book emphasizes that teachers play a crucial role in inspiring a love of reading in students beyond the classroom. It advocates for creating a positive and engaging reading environment where students see the intrinsic value of reading, rather than just as a means to an end. The author argues that reading is essential for success in all areas of life and encourages teachers to model this belief and create opportunities for students to discuss and share their reading experiences with each other.

Summary

Praise

Takeaways

• Craft a love for reading in students by immersing them in reading experiences.
• Encourage students to read at least 40 books per year.
• Replace traditional practices like book reports and comprehension tests with student choice.
• Create a classroom culture that values reading as an essential skill and habit.
• Focus on teaching children to love reading, rather than just teaching reading lessons for test scores.

Introduction

Takeaways

• The author is a reading teacher who inspires students to read extensively and loves it.
• Students in her classroom read 40 books per year, achieve high scores on state assessments, and come from diverse backgrounds.
• Teachers, administrators, and parents seek information on motivating children to read due to the large number of students who don't read well or often.
• Current reading programs and instruction have failed to prioritize independent, free-choice reading despite evidence showing its benefits for student motivation and achievement.
• The author believes that focusing on test scores and numbers of books read doesn't tell the full story; what matters is creating lifelong readers who love books and reading.
• Real reading, authentic reading, and independent reading should not be differentiated in school from reading in life.
• The Book Whisperer offers practical strategies for setting up a classroom library, designing reading requirements, carving out reading time, and altering instruction to align with real readers' habits.
• Students' quotes about their reading experiences and the author's reflections on her personal journey as a reader provide inspiration and guidance.
• The book aims to validate great teaching practices, offer practical tips, and inspire a paradigm shift in how we view reading for both students and ourselves.

Quotes

“When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book.”

CHAPTER 1 - There and Back Again

Takeaways

• The author's first year of teaching reading in a traditional whole-class novel unit approach was unsuccessful.
• She felt compelled to teach reading the way she was taught, despite her instincts and doubts about its effectiveness.
• In her second year, she learned about workshop teaching, which emphasizes independent reading, student choice, response, community, and structure.
• She implemented this structure in her classroom, focusing on teaching comprehension strategies and literary elements that students could apply to a range of texts.
• However, she became overly reliant on the methods of literacy leaders and felt frustrated when she couldn't perfectly replicate their approaches in her own classroom.
• She ultimately realized that master reading teachers don't just follow step-by-step lesson plans; they inspire a love of reading by sharing their passion for books and showing students how to become engaged readers themselves.
• The author concludes that, while she may never achieve teaching perfection, her role as a master reader is crucial in inspiring a love of reading in her students.

Quotes

“Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words. Neither one of us could imagine spending our life with someone who did not read.”

“I am a reader, a flashlight-under-the-covers, carries-a-book-everywhere-I-go​, don't-look-at-my-Amazon-bill. I choose purses based on whether I can cram a paperback into them, and my books are the first items I pack into a suitcase. I am the person who family and friends call when they need a book recommendation or cannot remember who wrote Heidi. My identity as a person is so entwined with my love of reading and books that I cannot separate the two.”

“I know from personal experience that readers lead richer lives, more lives, than those who don’t read.”

“If you ever think you have all the answers, it’s time to retire.”

“I must be a source of knowledge that my students access while learning how to read and write.”

“Instead of standing on a stage each day, dispensing knowledge to my young charges, I should guide them as they approach their own understandings.”

“Reading is both a cognitive and an emotional journey. I discovered that it was my job as a teacher to equip the travelers, teach them how to read a map, and show them what to do when they get lost, but ultimately, the journey is theirs alone.”

“I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.”

“Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters – the saints and the sinners, real or imagined – reading shows you how to be a better human being.”

CHAPTER 2 - Everybody Is a Reader

Takeaways

• Creating engaging reading communities requires considering students' personal experiences, interests, and backgrounds
• Teachers can use student surveys to learn about their students' preferences and make personalized reading recommendations
• Understanding students' interests can help teachers connect them with books that resonate and inspire them to read more
• Teachers should aim to create a classroom environment that is trusting, risk-free, and encourages students to take ownership of their learning
• Engagement is crucial for effective reading instruction, and students need to see themselves as capable readers who can make choices about what they read.

Quotes

“By making book selections and sharing past favorites the first activity in which we engage as a class, I emphasize the prominence that reading will hold all year. I also reveal to students that I am knowledgeable about books and that I value their prior reading experiences and preferences. The book frenzy sets the tone for my class. Everyone reads every day, all year long.”

“Embracing their inner reader starts with students selecting their own books to read. The freedom is not a future, perhaps-by-spring goal for them, but our first accomplishment as a class. Why does choice matter? Providing students with the opportunity to choose strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated.”

“Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power”

“By middle school, students have an image of themselves as readers or nonreaders. Students who do not read see reading as a talent that they do not have rather than as an attainable skill.”

“I need to put forward more encouraging terms for my students than the negative popular terminology struggling and reluctant. Where is the hope in these terms? I prefer to use positive language to identify the readers in my classes. Peeking into my classroom, I see sixty different readers with individual reading preferences and abilities, but I consistently recognize three trends: developing readers, dormant readers, and underground readers.”

“no matter the intervention, developing readers must spend substantial instructional time actually reading if they are to attain reading competence.”

“I think that dormant readers might become engaged readers if someone showed them that reading was engaging.”

“Students will rise to the level of a teacher’s expectations.”

CHAPTER 3 - There’s a Time and a Place

Takeaways

• Reading can happen anywhere, and it's essential for teachers to create a classroom environment that encourages reading in various settings.
• The dedicated reading corner is not a necessity for fostering a love of reading; students are resourceful and adaptable readers.
• Quiet environments are crucial for some students to engage effectively in independent reading, but natural dialogue about books can also be beneficial for building relationships among students and between the teacher and students.
• Teachers should find a balance between quiet reading time and opportunities for discussions about literature that support students' reading growth.

Quotes

“know that my life is marked by the road signs of my beloved books, each one symbolizing who I was when I read it, shaping who I have become. The uninitiated might say that I am lost in my books, but I know I am more found than lost.”

“This is what I want for my students, to lose and find themselves in books. During their own busy days of soccer practices, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, homework, and chores, they have little free time to read, so I must make sure that I give them time to read in class every day. After all, if I do not make time for them to read in school, why should they make time for it in their life?”

“Without spending increasingly longer periods of time reading, they won’t build endurance as readers, either. Students need time to read and time to be readers.”

“Readers steal time to read.”

“Building a trusting relationship with students is easier when you expect them to do the right thing instead of assuming that they are not.”

CHAPTER 4 - Reading Freedom

Takeaways

• Building a strong reading community involves creating a classroom library, setting aside time for independent reading, and encouraging students to engage in conversations about books.
• Students' background knowledge of genres influences their reading choices and comprehension.
• A reader's notebook serves as a tool for tracking reading progress and fostering reader-to-reader communication.

Quotes

“Ten books or twenty books are not enough to instill a love of reading in students. They must choose and read many books for themselves in order to catch the reading bug. By setting the requirement as high as I do, I ensure that students must have a book going constantly. Without the need to read a book every single day to stay on top of my requirement, students would read as little as they could. They might not internalize independent reading habits if my requirement expected less from them.”

“Teachers lose credibility with students when they ignore the cultural trends & issues that interest them & instead design classroom reading instruction around books that are "good for you." There is a certain amount of disdain from teachers in regard to popular fiction for children because some of those books are mind candy, but I’d bet that some of those teachers go home & read escapist books like Shopaholic or a James Patterson thriller & never make a connection. Are we teaching books or teaching readers?”

“Girl in Blue, by Ann Rinaldi,”

“The Sixth Grade Nickname Game, by Gordon Korman,”

“The Word Eater, by Mary Amato”

“Readers whispering back and forth about their reading experiences—this is how reading should look.”

CHAPTER 5 - Walking the Walk

Takeaways

• Teachers' reading attitudes and habits have a significant impact on students' reading development.
• Sharing your struggles and challenges in reading can inspire students.
• Staying current on recommended literature, industry sources, and student preferences is essential for expanding students' reading horizons.
• Engaging in book clubs or online reading communities can expand teachers' knowledge of available titles and genres.
• Creating a reader's notebook to document your reading experiences can serve as an inspiration for students.

Quotes

“Why aren’t adults, even teachers, reading, and what is this doing to our students?”

“We have created a culture of reading poverty in which a vicious cycle of aliteracy has the potential to devolve into illiteracy for many students. By allowing students to pass through our classrooms without learning to love reading, we are creating adults (who then become parents and teachers) who don't read much. They may be capable of reading well enough to perform academic and informational reading, but they do not love to read and have few life reading habits to model for children.”

“Readers are made, not born. Few students spring out of the ground fully formed as readers. They need help, and we cannot assume that they will get it from home, but they should always get it from us, their teachers.”

“When my principal interviews candidates for a teaching position at my school, regardless of whether it’s a language arts position, he always asks them to discuss the last book they read.”

CHAPTER 6 - Cutting the Teacher Strings

Takeaways

• Round-robin and popcorn reading can be detrimental to developing readers' confidence and comprehension, as well as a time waster for capable readers.
• Preparing students ahead of time for oral reading or assigning partner reading can make the experience more productive and less embarrassing for all involved.
• Alternatives to oral reading, such as using audio recordings or pairing students with partners, can save time and improve fluency.
• Incentive programs may not effectively motivate students to read long-term or instill a genuine appreciation for the value of reading. Instead, encourage students to see the benefits and rewards of reading for themselves.

Quotes

“Reading has become schoolwork, not an activity in which students willingly engage outside of school.”

“Are the activities and assessments we use accomplishing our intended instructional goals, or are they simply what we have always done?”

“Consuming a literary diet built exclusively on the classics does not provide students with the opportunity to investigate their own personal tastes in reading material and narrows their perspective of reading to the school task of hyper-analyzing literature. There needs to be a balance between the need to teach students about literature and the need to facilitate their growth as life readers.”

“If you cannot find a method for assessing students that uses authentic texts, I would ask why that concept is worth teaching.”

“I want my students to learn what life readers know: reading is its own reward. Reading is a university course in life; it makes us smarter by increasing our vocabulary and background knowledge of countless topics. Reading allows us to travel to destinations that we will never experience outside of the pages of a book. Reading is a way to find friends who have the same problems we do and who can give advice on solving those problems. Through reading, we can witness all that is noble, beautiful, or horrifying about other human beings. From a book’s characters, we can learn how to conduct ourselves. And most of all, reading is a communal act that connects you to other readers, comrades who have traveled to the same remarkable places that you have and been changed by them, too. Rewarding reading with prizes cheapens it, and undermines students’ chance to appreciate the experience of reading for the possibilities that it brings to their life. For students who read a lot, these programs are neither an incentive, nor a challenge. Yes, my classes participate in the schoolwide incentive programs when they are offered; after all, they would blaze past the requirements anyway. But I never let my students lose sight of what the true prize is; an appreciation of reading will add more to their life than a hundred days at Six Flags ever could.”

CHAPTER 7 - Letting Go

Takeaways

• Encouraging students to become lifelong readers requires providing them with access to a variety of books and giving them time to read.
• Reading should be seen as an intrinsic value, not just a means to an end such as passing a test.
• Students who are encouraged to read at home and in the classroom are more likely to become avid readers.
• Teachers can create reading communities within their classrooms by modeling a love of reading and allowing students to choose books that interest them.
• Reading is an essential skill for success in all areas of life, not just academics.
• Students who struggle with reading may benefit from individualized attention and support beyond the classroom.
• Teachers can make a significant impact on their students' reading habits by creating a positive and engaging reading environment.
• Reading should be seen as a joyful and rewarding experience, not a chore or an obligation.
• Students who read regularly are more likely to perform well on standardized tests and succeed in school.
• Teachers can foster a love of reading by sharing their own enthusiasm for books and creating opportunities for students to discuss and share their reading experiences with each other.

Quotes

“The purpose of school should not be to prepare students for more school. We should be seeking to have fully engaged students now.”

“After all, if we are not micromanaging every aspect of reading for students, can we call what we are doing teaching?”

“If I have ever brought you a book unasked for , know that I cared. I said everything to you that I wanted to with that book.”

“If you don't read, I don't know how to communicate with you...I can never express who I am in my own words as powerfully as my books can.”

“This is how I show my students that I love them—by putting books in their hands, by noticing what they are about, and finding books that tell them, “I know. I know. I know how it is. I know who you are, and even though we may never speak of it, read this book, and know that I understand you.” We speak in this language of books passing back and forth, books that say, “You are a dreamer; read this.” “You are hurting inside; read this.” “You need a good laugh; read this.”

“Students will read if we give them the books, the time, and the enthusiastic encouragement to do so. If we make them wait for the one unit a year in which they are allowed to choose their own books and become readers, they may never read at all. To keep our students reading, we have to let them.”

Afterword

Takeaways

• Reading is fundamental for personal growth and understanding the world.
• Teachers and schools have a duty to create an atmosphere that encourages reading as a means of exploration and engagement.
• Reading goes beyond test scores; it's a civic responsibility and a path to becoming informed decision-makers.
• Believe in the power of reading for yourself, students, and all learners.
• Create powerful reading classrooms where students lead sustained reading lives beyond school years.
• Join the book whisperer movement to promote the importance of reading for students' success and our democracy.

Discussion

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