Sarah McClure’s December Blog Post: Routman (2003)

Chapter 3: Share Your Reading Life

I agree with the importance Routman places on sharing my personal reading habits with my students.  So much of the student’s enthusiasm towards reading can be driven by my own enthusiasm.  I feel that so much of student “buy in” is linked to the teacher’s exuberance in presentation.  I enjoy recommending books to my students that I have read and enjoyed.  I have two boys of my own, 11 and 13, who are avid readers, and I share books that they recommend as well.  Sometimes when we are working on a novel study in class I will stop mid page and share a text to text connection that I have made.  Our class is reading Sign of the Beaver right now.  I told my students that Little House in the Big Woods was one of my favorite books growing up and that there are some connections to be made between the two novels.  This prompts students to do the same and before we know it we are deep in a wonderful discussion of other books from possibly the same historical time period or similar theme.  This is a great way for students to become excited about choosing their next novel for independent reading time