“We are what we’ve learned to be and we care about what we’ve learned to care about and we do what we’ve learned to do. So when we see instances of violence or injustice…these are all products of how we’ve been shaped, programmed to think and care and learn and act…A family is a huge learning system that shape us so significantly." Elizabeth Dozois
This is the 30th and final blog post entry of the 2019-20 school year. Last blog entry, I reflected on how my understandings of 'home reading' have changed in the face of school closures, and the transfer of learning to read from being a primary responsibility of schools to a parental responsibility necessitated by the pandemic lockdown. Today's blog entry offers insights into developing joy in reading at home with children and includes some suggestions for summer reading that are long-time favourites of me, my family and some of the students I have encountered and been privileged to read beside and with over my 30-year teaching career. Thirty blog posts in my 30th year of teaching - that is pure coincidence yet highly serendipitous!
Becoming a reader who builds relationships with and inside texts, who loves to be immersed in the story and has great trouble setting the book aside in favour of a good night's sleep - these are the goals I aspire to for every reader in my life circle!
I've been generally content as a teacher for many years to assume the role of teachers and schools is to offer technical support in the learning to read process, striving in my professional role to enhance my own awareness of how to best teach technical reading skills successfully to young learners. Accepting this role has also allowed me to vaguely assume teachers and parents are also working somewhat in tandem to share the joy of reading as well. As I have travelled the pandemic journey in much closer proximity to families than ever before in my career, it has become clear to me that somehow the balance of this relationship has tilted somewhere in the past couple of decades until most families now perceive the role of schools to be the 'teacher' of reading altogether. More importantly, I believe we have, as educators, inadvertently promoted this thinking by turning reading at home into 'home reading', a trackable, levelled experience whose importance has become unintentionally attached to technical reading expertise rather than the enjoyment and risk once associated with cracking open a new book full of different ideas and challenging words.
As I move forward into the next school year, I am determined to try and re-shape the purposes and procedures associated with home reading. To celebrate the joy and challenge of reading at home as a non-technical experience, an opportunity to try new strategies, find new words, sample new genres, explore new vistas without worry over technical success or teacher 'approval' - either implied or directly applied. To acknowledge the joy of reading happens at home as well as in school, as does the technical practice and improvement of reading overall.
It is truly a joy for me to be jolted into recognizing reading at home for enjoyment, to pique curiosity, to learn a new skill, to share new ideas is exactly what we should be celebrating most! It has nudged me into remembering myself as a childhood reader and the excitement I would feel every Saturday morning coming home from the library with a new armload of 'good reads'. I have also reflected on my own children as readers, how each of the five of them made known their individual adventures in reading through the stories told around the dinner table, the posters they pinned to their bedroom walls, the books they chose to share as birthday gifts for friends, the excitement of lining up at the bookstore for the midnight launch of the latest "Harry Potter" novel, the negotiating for space in suitcases for both favourite titles and their latest 'new reads' as we packed for summer vacations. These are the true milestones of being a successful, joyous reader - those that bring us pleasure whether we can identify the phonological elements, decode fluently, infer, question or summarize like everyone else in our 'grade or age group'. In writing about home reading, I have come to recognize the experiences of learning to read has come full circle and returned 'home' - where being technically correct is only one small part of reading independently.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to write 30 blog entries this past school year - coincidentally my 30th year as a teacher :) To have written and responded to queries and situations from students and parents that questioned, guided and celebrated the work of children as readers. It is an extraordinary experience to have your thinking reversed and tumbled unexpectedly - it is even more extraordinary to begin to reflect on your own personal experiences and recognize the importance of memory and experience as a lens for understanding the world of young learners too.
As a close to this 30th blog of this unusual school year, I would like to honour the remarkable celebration of children enjoying reading independently by recommending a few familiar favourite titles, as well as some newer ones that might prove to be most enjoyable for our students reading at home this summer. A beach is not necessary for a 'beach read' to be loved by both adults and children (although it certainly helps!) this summer - the best part of being a reader is indulging in the time and space to celebrate a brand new story!
Happy Summer to all our families - hope you are all safe and healthy through the coming weeks of summer and I look so forward to welcoming everyone back to school in September - for real!
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Recommendations for Summer 'Beach Reads' or Read Alouds
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (or any of the 'Harry Potter' titles)
2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (my personal favourite!)
3. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
5. National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of the World by Karen de Seve
6. Camp Tiger by Susan Choi
7. How to Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Museum by Keri Smith
8. How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
9. Clarence's Big Secret by Roy MacGregor
10. Everybody's Different on Everybody Street by Sheree Fitch
As I move forward into the next school year, I am determined to try and re-shape the purposes and procedures associated with home reading. To celebrate the joy and challenge of reading at home as a non-technical experience, an opportunity to try new strategies, find new words, sample new genres, explore new vistas without worry over technical success or teacher 'approval' - either implied or directly applied. To acknowledge the joy of reading happens at home as well as in school, as does the technical practice and improvement of reading overall.
It is truly a joy for me to be jolted into recognizing reading at home for enjoyment, to pique curiosity, to learn a new skill, to share new ideas is exactly what we should be celebrating most! It has nudged me into remembering myself as a childhood reader and the excitement I would feel every Saturday morning coming home from the library with a new armload of 'good reads'. I have also reflected on my own children as readers, how each of the five of them made known their individual adventures in reading through the stories told around the dinner table, the posters they pinned to their bedroom walls, the books they chose to share as birthday gifts for friends, the excitement of lining up at the bookstore for the midnight launch of the latest "Harry Potter" novel, the negotiating for space in suitcases for both favourite titles and their latest 'new reads' as we packed for summer vacations. These are the true milestones of being a successful, joyous reader - those that bring us pleasure whether we can identify the phonological elements, decode fluently, infer, question or summarize like everyone else in our 'grade or age group'. In writing about home reading, I have come to recognize the experiences of learning to read has come full circle and returned 'home' - where being technically correct is only one small part of reading independently.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to write 30 blog entries this past school year - coincidentally my 30th year as a teacher :) To have written and responded to queries and situations from students and parents that questioned, guided and celebrated the work of children as readers. It is an extraordinary experience to have your thinking reversed and tumbled unexpectedly - it is even more extraordinary to begin to reflect on your own personal experiences and recognize the importance of memory and experience as a lens for understanding the world of young learners too.
As a close to this 30th blog of this unusual school year, I would like to honour the remarkable celebration of children enjoying reading independently by recommending a few familiar favourite titles, as well as some newer ones that might prove to be most enjoyable for our students reading at home this summer. A beach is not necessary for a 'beach read' to be loved by both adults and children (although it certainly helps!) this summer - the best part of being a reader is indulging in the time and space to celebrate a brand new story!
Happy Summer to all our families - hope you are all safe and healthy through the coming weeks of summer and I look so forward to welcoming everyone back to school in September - for real!
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Recommendations for Summer 'Beach Reads' or Read Alouds
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (or any of the 'Harry Potter' titles)
2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (my personal favourite!)
3. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
5. National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of the World by Karen de Seve
6. Camp Tiger by Susan Choi
7. How to Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Museum by Keri Smith
8. How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
9. Clarence's Big Secret by Roy MacGregor
10. Everybody's Different on Everybody Street by Sheree Fitch
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