Reading in the Wild

The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits

Donalyn Miller, Susan Kelley

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780470900307
• eBook ISBN: 9781118235010
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Methods for Reading

In Reading in the Wild, reading expert Donalyn Miller continues the conversation that began in her bestselling book, The Book Whisperer. While The Book Whisperer revealed the secrets of getting students to love reading, Reading in the Wild, written with reading teacher Susan Kelley, describes how to truly instill lifelong "wild" reading habits in our students.

Based, in part, on survey responses from adult readers as well as students, Reading in the Wild offers solid advice and strategies on how to develop, encourage, and assess five key reading habits that cultivate a lifelong love of reading. Also included are strategies, lesson plans, management tools, and comprehensive lists of recommended books. Copublished with Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week and Teacher magazine, Reading in the Wild is packed with ideas for helping students build capacity for a lifetime of "wild" reading.

"When the thrill of choice reading starts to fade, it's time to grab Reading in the Wild. This treasure trove of resources and management techniques will enhance and improve existing classroom systems and structures."
— Cris Tovani, secondary teacher, Cherry Creek School District, Colorado, consultant, and author of Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?

"With Reading in the Wild, Donalyn Miller gives educators another important book. She reminds us that creating lifelong readers goes far beyond the first step of putting good books into kids' hands."
— Franki Sibberson, third-grade teacher, Dublin City Schools, Dublin, Ohio, and author of Beyond Leveled Books

" Reading in the Wild, along with the now legendary The Book Whisperer, constitutes the complete guide to creating a stimulating literature program that also gets students excited about pleasure reading, the kind of reading that best prepares students for understanding demanding academic texts. In other words, Donalyn Miller has solved one of the central problems in language education."
— Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus, University of Southern California

Coda

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading.

—Betty Smith,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Allison was not much of a reader at the beginning of the school year. Compliant and a teacher pleaser, Allison faked an interest in books because I expected it from her, but we both knew that she wasn’t an enthusiastic reader. She abandoned more books than she completed, declaring each one “boring” or “not her type” of book. She frequently went to the school library or asked me if I needed help around the classroom instead of reading. When I talked to her about reading at home, she admitted she didn’t read there. Allison wanted to be a reader. She tried. She just couldn’t commit to reading and told me that she felt overwhelmed.

Discarding titles almost daily, Allison spent most of our independent reading time previewing stacks of books that I hand-selected for her. Some books I suggested, like Leslie Connor’s Waiting for Normal, worked. Others, like No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko, didn’t. For every book she finished, she ditched two or three. I worried that previewing books with me had become her newest reading avoidance activity. Nevertheless, Allison slowly developed fledgling reading confidence and more stamina—finishing several books and self-selecting books on occasion. Her level of engagement waxed and waned from book to book, though. If she wasn’t captivated with her choice, she slid back into her nonreading habits again.

Allison’s best friend in class was Lynnsey. Unlike Allison, Lynnsey read three or four books a week—tearing through series and constantly seeking new books to read. As their friendship grew, Lynnsey, who seemed unaware of Allison’s reading reluctance, recommended the Twilight series to her. Lynnsey adored Twilight and promoted the series so passionately to other readers in the class that she convinced even boys to read it. Allison, who was just as accommodating a friend as she was a student, borrowed Lynnsey’s copy of Twilight. I was not optimistic that Allison would finish the book, and I worried that she wouldn’t abandon Twilight if she didn’t enjoy it because she didn’t want to offend Lynnsey. Allison had never read a book as long as Twilight, and I knew that the book’s plot bogged down in places—not the best situation for a developing reader. I kept my misgivings hidden because I wanted it to work.

A week into reading Twilight, Allison announ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Praise for Reading in the Wild
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword: Living the Wild Life of a Reader
• Introduction
• Life, the Universe, and Everything
• Creating a Workshop Schedule That Works for You
• Curating a Classroom Library
• Conferring: What's the Point?
• Building a Personal Canon
• Coda
• References
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• About the Sponsor
• Index
• End User License Agreement