“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
~W. Somerset Maugham
Did that quote ring true for anyone else? I loved this. I don’t think I could count the number of times I have ecaped in a book for a little while in the midst of something difficult. Breakups, money worries, waiting on those test scores to come back – the things that are out of my control. You can always escape and forget for a little while when you’re reading a book.
Donalyn Miller is brave to let her students “loose” in her library. 🙂 Of course, her students are three years older than mine and hopefully have some common sense when it comes to how a book should be treated and handled. I feel like I still need to have those rituals and routines lessons with my kids about our classroom library in the first few days. My hope is to spend the first week in a reading conference with each child and talk to them as they pick out their first few books. What are you all doing? Are you letting them loose or keeping more structure?
I loved the descriptions of the three types of readers. I had to decided which one I was first – did you? I was definitely an underground reader. I remember getting detention in 9th grade because my lit teacher caught me reading a John Grisham novel when I should have been reading Lord of the Flies. HA! Looking back on my students, I felt guilty that I didn’t recognize some of the needs that Donalyn described for my dormant and developing readers. I definitely need to make my reading conferences more than just a running record and goal setting time. Reflections like this make me ready to go back to work. 🙂
40 Books?? That’s a huge undertaking for 6th graders… I’m not sure how that would play our in 3rd grade. I wonder if I could spread it out over each 9 weeks. I would want to play with the genres a little. Hmmm… I smell a freebie in the works! 🙂 What about you all? Any suggestions before I become married to Microsoft Word for the rest of the day?
I can’t wait to talk about Chapter 3! It’s my favorite so far!! 🙂
