The Book Whisperer

School ends in four days and I am working with my departing students to set reading goals for the summer. Discussing “summer reading slump,” when students’ reading levels decline over the summer because they don’t read, I share with my students the advice of researcher, Jimmy S. Kim, who recommends that children read four or five books over the summer to maintain their end-of-school-year reading levels. I urge each child to make lists of at least five books they plan to read over the summer break, frequently loaning books to sweeten the deal. After all, our class library books sit unread and unloved for three months. I consider these loans the literary equivalent of taking the plants and class pets home for the summer.

You see, I believe that the most important books my students will read are the ones they read after school is out. Choosing to read during the summer proves my students are independent readers who don’t need my modeling or expectations to keep reading. They read because they want to, not because they have to.

I have always been a person who has to read. Making summer reading plans is never a problem for me! Freed from grading and lesson planning, I set the ambitious reading goal of one book per day over summer vacation. From June to August, I read almost half of my yearly book allotment. It is hot here in Texas (already close to 100 degrees) and I confess that hiding in my air conditioning, reading for hours, is my favorite summer pastime. For me, summer reading slump refers to my prone posture on the couch, reading happily.

The books in my waiting-to-read bookcase (yes, an entire bookcase full) whisper to me these days-- begging me to choose them first. A few have been calling for months and are becoming quite persistent! Don’t you have books calling to you, too? Here is a sampling of the children’s books I will be reading this summer:

How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor- Georgina Hayes, her mother and brother are homeless, living in their car. Spotting a missing dog poster, Georgina hatches a plot to steal the dog and earn a reward. Garnering a starred rating from School Library Journal, I can tell you that any book with a dog in it has the potential to be an instant hit with intermediate readers.

Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs- After a meteorite crashes into Brady’s house, he must battle his nemeses, the Carver boys, and some unusual physical symptoms, to hold on to his rare find. Extreme adventures are Hobbs' specialty, and the teaser on this book’s flap promises to deliver.

Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff- Sam, a learning disabled student who cannot read, fears his approaching eleventh birthday. When he discovers a mysterious newspaper clipping in the attic, Sam begins a quest to uncover a family secret. Any mystery which can only be solved by a reader sounds like my kind of book!

Airman by Eoin Colfer- While waiting for the next Artemis Fowl installment, due in July, I can soothe myself with this book from a fantasy master. Set in the 1890’s on the Saltee Islands, off the coast of Ireland, Airman follows the life of Conor Broekhart, a young man born in a hot air balloon, who is obsessed with flying. Spending years in prison on a trumped-up treason charge, Conor plots his escape by building a flying machine. My husband (who stopped waiting for me to read it first) claims this was a ripping adventure yarn with just enough fantasy to keep Colfer’s diehard fans happy.

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg- Reading The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in elementary school began my lifelong love of all books Konigsburg. Amadeo, the new boy in town, desperately wants to make a great discovery, and through his new friend, William, might have stumbled onto mystery involving the artist Modigliani and the censorship of “degenerate art” in Nazi Germany.

Ethan Suspended by Pamela Ehrenberg- Ethan Oppenheimer is having a rough year: his parents separate, he is suspended from school, he is shipped off to live with his grandparents, and now he discovers he is the only white student at his new middle school. This unusual coming-of-age story explores topics which speak to middle schoolers everywhere—prejudice, family, and struggling to fit in.

What are you reading this summer? Share your reading plans. I bet I add a few more books to my pile when you do!

Look for a list of teaching books I plan to read in a future post.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

On May 1st, the Department of Education released the preliminary results of Reading First, the federal program which provides grants for initiatives which improve the reading achievement of at-risk elementary school children. The initial findings of the DOE study indicate that students participating in Reading First perform no better on reading achievement tests than their peers in other instructional programs. Instead of re-addressing the flawed premise on which Reading First was built, the 2000 Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, policymakers ask for more money to fund this failing federal program and beg us all to give Reading First more time.

The National Reading Panel left independent reading off of their recommendations for improving reading instruction stating that, “The research suggests that there are more beneficial ways to spend reading instructional time than to have students read independently in the classroom without reading instruction.” However, Stephen Krashen, respected researcher, activist, and the author of The Power of Reading, identifies fifty-three different studies which prove that students in free-reading programs perform better or equal to students in any other type of reading programs, and students’ motivation and interest in reading is higher when they get the opportunity to read in school. In spite of the findings of the NRP, this information sends the message that every other activity used in classrooms to teach reading better get the same results, not just in reading achievement, but in motivation, or it is detrimental to students.

The children cannot wait. They do not have more time. Students, who entered kindergarten in 2000, the year the National Reading Panel report came out, are in high school now. While Washington policymakers fumble to figure out what is best practice in getting children to read and crafting program after program claiming to have the answers, these children are graduating and breathing a sigh of relief that they never have to read a book again.

We have worked so hard to develop systems to teach reading, yet I claim that we had no grounds to systematize an act like reading in the first place. The only groups served by current trends to produce more and more programs for teaching reading are the publishing and testing companies who make billions of dollars from their programs and tests. Last year, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), released a report detailing conflicts of interest at Reading First due to financial connections between several staff members and educational publishers. What agenda was being served? Meanwhile, the people who have the best ability in actually getting children to read—children’s book authors, parents, librarians, and teachers get the least credit (monetarily or otherwise). No hidden agenda exists with this group; they just want children to read.

I believe that this corporate machinery of scripted programs, comprehension worksheets (reproducibles, handouts, printables, whatever you want to call them), computer-based incentive packages, and test practice curriculum facilitates a solid bottom-line for the companies that sell them, and give schools proof they can point to that they are using every available resource to teach reading, but these efforts are doomed to fail a large number of students because they leave out the most important factor. When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book.

And it would take a forklift. Using a bathroom scale, I weighed the ancillary materials that came with our district-adopted literature book. The teacher’s edition, student workbooks, practice tests, lesson plan guides, CD-ROMs, and extension materials weighed twenty-seven pounds. Throwing on several hardcover editions just to even the odds, the forty books I require my students to read each year weigh about twenty-four pounds, and these books cost hundreds of dollars less than a textbook package. We don’t need another reading program; we need to go back to the first reading program—connecting children with books. This should always be our bottom line.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)