Finding Joy in Teaching Reading

This post is inspired by Jen Barker and her blog post about her one little word for 2014, JOY.  Her post connected me to a post about finding joy in school and learning by Chris Kennedy.  Today, with my colleague Marie, I spoke to parents about reading with children and the focus of our session was making reading joyful.

I think sometimes the pressure we feel to get all students reading at level xyz by a certain date, darkens our vision and makes the joy of reading harder to find.

 Find Joy in Teaching Reading:

1. Joy is contagious.  Share your own love of reading with your students.

2.  Read out loud to your students, daily, no matter what age.

3. Build a community of readers who share books, make recommendations and talk about books.

4.  Put phonics and phonemic awareness in their place.  There is a place for both of these pieces of the puzzle, but they are just that, pieces of the puzzle.

5.  Focus on meaning.  Reading is making meaning and interacting with text.  When we teach for meaning and teach students to think while their reading, this allows them to interact more freely with text and come to a better understanding of what they are reading.

6.  Let there be choice.  Time to read just right books (fluency level) and time to read just right books (passion level).

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." -Maya Angelou

This post first appeared on Literacy in the Elementary Classroom by Lisa Schwartz, Teacher Consultant SD38 Richmond