Chalk Talk: Reading Widely to Grow Your Teaching. Reading Widely to Grow Your Readers and Writers

Teri Lesesne’s livejournal is thought provoking. Maybe you know her as “Professor Nana”. It is the type of blog that inspires teachers to reconsider their practices as a way to revise and reform what we do in the classroom. I love Professor Nana's blog. Her posts are thought provoking. Her post on April 3rd reminds teachers of the importance of academic and professional reading. It helps us stay current and remain a part of the conversation with those trying to challenge what we believe is right for children. We both believe wholeheartedly in seeking out professional reading, self-selected articles, books, and other pieces of professional texts throughout the year to both affirm our practices and push us to be agents of change inside our classroom.

Following this read, we both reflected about the professional reading we do each day, weekly, monthly, and yearly. We push each other to read widely, and we also revisit texts each year. How could we start a new school year without rereading Donalyn Miller’s books,  The Book Whisperer or Reading in the Wild?

This morning, we connected the need to stay current with professional reading to the need for teachers of reading and writing to continue along this vein by reading children’s literature- both new and old. If we are not reading the new gems in children’s literature, how are we to be effective in reading and writing conferences? How can we find new books to use as mentor texts? How can we engage our children in book talk or make meaningful, authentic book recommendations? Reading the very books our students need and want helps us to find books that will act as “mirrors and windows”. (If you haven’t seen Grace Lin’s Ted Talk, “The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf”, you should!)

So, here’s to a year of reading texts that will help us grow our practice. And here’s to a year of reading texts to help us grow our readers and writers too!