My first 5 years teaching, I fell into teaching the way I was taught, which consisted of being forced to read the most boring books ever written and then write about them. I knew from the beginning that this just wasn’t working. I needed to change something, so this past summer I spent a lot of time reading and researching how to instruct through a choice reading program, and I absolutely knew that choice reading was the way to go with my population of students.
After developing my plan, I realized that if I was going to go through with the choice reading, I would need to get a hold of as many books as possible! Between donations and using all my extra money at used book sales, I have accumulated around 600 books, which sounds like a lot, but when you have 117 students who read over 70,000 pages during the 1st quarter of school (most haven’t read an entire book since elementary!), 600 books isn’t a whole lot!
With my growing library, I will enable my students to develop a lifelong love for reading that will ultimately make them stronger as they navigate their lives and futures. Honestly, my goals are not to get them to pass a standardized test, but to help make them happy and productive citizens!
About my class
My first 5 years teaching, I fell into teaching the way I was taught, which consisted of being forced to read the most boring books ever written and then write about them. I knew from the beginning that this just wasn’t working. I needed to change something, so this past summer I spent a lot of time reading and researching how to instruct through a choice reading program, and I absolutely knew that choice reading was the way to go with my population of students.
After developing my plan, I realized that if I was going to go through with the choice reading, I would need to get a hold of as many books as possible! Between donations and using all my extra money at used book sales, I have accumulated around 600 books, which sounds like a lot, but when you have 117 students who read over 70,000 pages during the 1st quarter of school (most haven’t read an entire book since elementary!), 600 books isn’t a whole lot!
With my growing library, I will enable my students to develop a lifelong love for reading that will ultimately make them stronger as they navigate their lives and futures. Honestly, my goals are not to get them to pass a standardized test, but to help make them happy and productive citizens!
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