Reaffirming my reading beliefs #SOL16 4/31

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Two Writing Teachers

Today was a professional development across the county, so we could choose what PD we wanted to attend.  Thankfully, a colleague sent out an email to that Dr. Steven Layne would be one of the presenters.  (I almost missed the deadline!)'

Dr. Layne is a literacy advocate from Judson University.  I read his professional book, "Igniting a Passion for Reading" many years back, and his passion for reading is clear throughout the book.  I remember nodding my head and marking lots of pages with sticky notes to share with my coworkers.  

Today I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Layne in person.  He spoke about reading aloud to students, K-12, and shared the big ideas from his newer book, "In Defense of Read Aloud:  Sustaining Best Practice."  Even though I'm a staunch supporter of read alouds, spending the day listening to Dr. Layne simply cemented my reading beliefs.

As I looked around, I could see many people nodding.  A few middle school and high school teachers asked some great questions like, "How can I fit in read aloud at my level?"  and "What if I'm in the library?"  Everyone wanted the magic formula for how many minutes per day, per week, per month they should take away time from the curriculum to "do" read alouds." 

I was pleased as punch to hear Dr. Layne clearly explain to them that read alouds ARE instructional time.  Read alouds should be chosen with intention and planned for like any other lesson.   

YES!  Read aloud time is precious - it allows us to take our students out of their small town and into new cities, times and dimensions.  We can use read alouds to tackle important topics in society or small conflicts at recess.  Books are really important instructional tools.

My little notebook is teeming with quotes from the day, and I used my Twitter feed to broadcast my favorites.  I left the session feeling energized and proud.  I even talked my hubby into a library visit tonight so I could grab a pile of books that Dr. Layne recommended!

Bursting with Ideas

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Two Writing Teachers

It's the two-week "rest" period before school starts.  No sports or summer school for my teens.

Ahhhhh.

My oldest daughter landed a job (hooray!) and will work next week, but this week is all about small errands, friends, reading and rest for the three of us.  My husband is happy to head off to work - he can't deal with too much unstructured time.
Since I've had more time to relax, I've spent more time on Twitter (I'm @ReadSoMuch) with my Personal Learning Network.  When people ask how that works, I tell them it's all about who you follow, and what you are looking for.

I'm looking for lots of ideas for my resource room and school reading community...

• read alouds
• organizational tips (!)
• ways to engage kids (and teachers) in reading
• how not to be overwhelmed by the Common Core State Standards

Now that I've had more time to research and dig into many tweets and blog posts, my mind is bursting with ideas.  The challenge I have is organizing (!) these ideas and figuring out how to best implement them. 

Some of my plans for the beginning of the school year:

1. Bring my books from home (labeled with levels and organized (mostly!) into book boxes) and reboot my classroom library
2. Ask teachers to share pictures of themselves from elementary school along with a book cover of their favorite read - this will share our "reading lives" (even if we were reluctant readers) with our students
3. Use Evernote instead of a planner (but I will miss writing with my colorful pens!) to keep track of team meetings
4. Journal many times during the week to empty my brain of stress and great ideas I want to capture

I'm happy to have plans, but I'm not stressing myself about any of them.  My plan is to avoid the back-to-school nightmares and ease into my 13th year of teaching.  

#Summerthrowdown update

Tonight ends the first round of the #summerthrowdown reading challenge.  Three of my Tweeps (people I follow on Twitter) enjoy challenging each other (and their classrooms) to outread each other on a regular basis.  Then the idea of a summer reading challenge came together, plotting librarians against teachers.  It's been great fun:  reading like crazy, logging our reads on a spreadsheet (we count average number of books read) and giving stats/cheering/pouting on Twitter.

I've got a pile of picture books to read tonight, in addition to a few early chapter books that I found at the library.  My plan is to read until my eyes bug out of my head (those pesky #LeagueOfLibrarians have been ahead for most of the throwdown).  We're counting picture books as 0.25, books 50-150 pages as 0.50 and novels over 150 pages as 1.0.

Care to join the second round of the throwdown?  Check out heisereads.blogspot.com for details on Friday!  Thanks so much to Brian (@brianwyzlic), Jillian (@heisereads), Sherry (@libraryfanatic) and Kathy (@thebrainlair) for a great #summerthrowdown!

Now back to reading!!!

Thankful for my Twitter PLN

I think it's the first time in my 10 years of teaching (how did that happen?) that I'm not ready for the school year to end.  I'm usually the one who sneakily manages the countdown calendar in the teacher's lounge.  This year, I've been completely consumed by my Twitter PLN (personal learning network).  I haven't even counted the days we have left.

I'm not ready for the year to end! I still have lots of books and instruction to share with my students!

How does a Twitter PLN connect to my reading instruction?  Well, because of my PLN, I've done the following this year:

• follow & tweet with nearly 100 authors, teachers, librarians, and other book-minded people
• participate in a monthly #titletalk to hear about books I should be reading.  Then I post them...
• on my Goodreads account (in 2011 I've read and rated 40 books)
• tweeted with authors about their books and how much my students enjoyed them
• started KidBlogs for my 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (with additional encouragement from Michelle)
• follow a bunch of book-centered blogs
• created this blog to reflect on my teaching and books I love

WOW!  I plan to continue sharing and receiving ideas for books, using technology and planning great instruction throughout the summer for next year.  Thanks to Twitter, I can tap into the minds of resourceful people around the world anytime.