Passionate Readers

The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child

Pernille Ripp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317339199
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

How do we inspire students to love reading and discovery? In Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child, classroom teacher, author, and speaker Pernille Ripp reveals the five keys to creating a passionate reading environment. You'll learn how to…

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• Use your own reading identity to create powerful reading experiences for all students

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• Empower your students and their reading experience by focusing on your physical classroom environment

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• Create and maintain an enticing, well-organized, easy-to-use classroom library;

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• Build a learning community filled with choice and student ownership; and

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• Guide students to further develop their own reading identity to cement them as life-long, invested readers.

Throughout the book, Pernille opens up about her own trials and errors as a teacher and what she's learned along the way. She also shares a wide variety of practical tools that you can use in your own classroom, including a reader profile sheet, conferring sheet, classroom library letter to parents, and much more. These tools are available in the book and as eResources to help you build your own classroom of passionate readers.

1

Teacher Reading Identity and How It Matters

What should Mrs. Ripp tell other teachers? That she has failed butlearned from it.

—Evan, seventh grader

We were a household filled with books. I cannot remember a time when books were not in my hands, when my mother did not read aloud to us at night, or when I did not read myself to sleep under the covers, needing to finish just one more page. Growing up in Bjerringbro, Denmark, we had a beautiful public library, and I was the proud owner of a pink hand-me-down bike and my very own library card. There were no restrictions to what I checked out; the librarian merely reminded me to bring the books back. I was 10 years old when I fell in love with Jean M. Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear, a book that was decidedly not written for 10-year-olds. Yet I was allowed to explore her intricate world by myself, since neither my mother, nor the public librarian, ever stopped me from reading whatever I selected. Censorship was not a part of my childhood, and I became a reader because I was surrounded by reading experiences. Yet, reading is not something I connect to my school experience much. I must have read, after all; I remember the basal-like packets we had to do when we were learning to read. Yet, I do not recollect school librarians or many teachers who loved books, while I am sure they existed. I do not remember having books in our learning communities, nor having literature discussions that went past short story collections. I was not introduced to the whole-class novel until at age 13, I experienced a year of high school in Lenox, Massachusetts. Mrs. Vincent in Freshman Honors English made us read the classics and tried to get us to love them in the same way she did. Despite not having many in-school reading role models, I was a reader. Books moved across the world with me; I remember the joy I felt whenever we left America to go back home to Denmark and I was reunited with all of the books we had not been able to bring. That and the unwavering belief from my mother that I was a reader and that in our house reading mattered. I was lucky to have such a literate life, and its foundation has stayed with me through the years. I felt very connected to books as I moved into my adulthood, yet not in an outward way; instead, to me, being a reader was such an innate part of me that I did not proclaim it, nor celebrate it. Reading was connected to the very core of who I was as a person; I simply was a reader, and so I read.

Then—A Hidden Reader

Teachers can be reading role models by reading a lot of books, which might inspire their students.

—Anna, seventh grader

When I immigrated to America from Denmark at the age of 18, I marveled at the sheer availability of cheap books whenever I went to a bookstore. I no longer frequented the library as much because I could buy the books I wanted. So my shelves grew, and my stacks overflowed as I meandered from genre to genre building my very own home library. Any visitors to our house would quickly realize that books mattered, and not just adult books but picture books and favorite books from childhood, even if I mostly had them for show and not for reading. Memories were woven into the books displayed; they reminded me of where I had come from and the childhood I had. As a fourth grade teacher, though, I kept my reading life private. It was not an intentional decision to hide it, yet my reading life did not seem important. After all, I had grown up to be a reader without the “teacher as a reading role model” in my life. In hindsight, though, I know now that I did not need the teacher as a reader role model because I had it at home instead. My mother is still one of the most voracious readers I know, and she made sure that we grew up in a household that had access to many types of literature and many things to read, as well as time to read it. My childhood was filled with reading aloud and discussions of books. Not all children are as fortunate; in fact, we know from many studies that children who are raised in families who have less access to books and texts will enter school at a distinct disadvantage, already having to make up for “lost” time as they try to find success.¹ No matter how strong my literacy home was, it was not the same in school, not in any significant way. I therefore started my journey as a teacher of reading not quite sure who I needed to be other than what lesson plans told me. I was privately connected to my adult reading life but did not see how that connection should be mined to create a rich literacy life in our learning community. Because I did not read children’s books or even young adult ones, I did not know what to discuss with my students beyond the few texts I had heard about from other students. I preferred adult biographies and historical novels and barely ever went into the children’s section of our library or bookstore. When the latest book catalog would show up at our school, I had no idea what to pick and instead went with whatever caught my eye. When the books arrived, I did not announce them to the class but mostly placed them on the shelf, and so my selections often sat unread in our learning community, failing to interest any readers. Once in a while, I would hold them up to show them, but I did not know how to book talk them since I did not read them myself. While I identified as a passionate reader in my home life, I never made the connection between home and school. By compartmentalizing my own passion for books, I created two separate versions of me; Pernille the reader and Pernille the teacher, and neither version was enough to inspire a love of reading in others.

Yet, the idea that I needed to be a reading role model did not occur to me until I realized how many conversations we were not having in our learning community about reading and what it meant to be a reader. While we discussed the books we had read together through a whole-class novel or a read aloud, our conversations mostly centered on skills, such as summary and comprehension. As a class we connected, visualized, and synthesized, inspired by Ellin Keene and Susan Zimmermann's Mosaic of Thought, a fantastic book in its own right. Yet it never went much further than that. Reading so often felt like a checklist of strategies to get through, knowing that the end result would probably be stronger readers, but doing nothing to inspire students to read beyond the classroom. Once in a while, we would discuss favorite books, but it would be mostly in the past tense, as in our favorite picture books from childhood or books that we had enjoyed years earlier. Students rarely shared their recommendations, nor their current reads; we saved that for their six book report projects that they all had to do in a year. In short, we never really delved into what made us love these books, how we selected books, and what reading meant to us. Even though, with the luxurious gift of 90 minutes for literacy instruction, we most certainly had the time to have these conversations. Yet, they did not seem important; after all, I did not need to discuss my own reading life to continue to read, so why would students?

I was in my fourth year of teaching elementary school the day I realized that my students were disconnected from our reading community. I had started late in the year, returning from a maternity leave after having twins, and watched as a student asked my long-term substitute if he could have a pass for the school library so he could book shop. She gladly gave him one, and away he went. At the time, our classroom library filled four bookshelves and we had close to 300 books. I thought it was the model of what a classroom library should look like; 300 stand-alone titles (Neuman n.d.). The books were accessible, in neat bins, shelved by genre or author, and ready for the students whenever they needed them. Free choice in books ruled our room, and still that child was not the only one who asked for a pass. Several others gave up browsing our classroom library and instead headed for the school library. Befuddled, I asked if this happened often. “Yes, almost every day,” she told me. I was confused; after all, why were they not using the books they had access to right in our classroom?

The next day, my first day back, armed with my newfound confusion, we started our standard 90-minute literacy block discussing our classroom library. Why was it underutilized? Why did they not read the books we had right here? One by one my students told me that while our library had plenty of books, they were not very good. That while they could easily check them out, they did not know how to find good books, did not know which books to read, and therefore needed someone to speak to. In their quest, they had therefore turned to our school librarian, Mr. Powers, who knew just what they should read next. A visit to him meant they came away with ideas, whereas a visit to our classroom library left them empty-handed. They knew from experience that my own list of recommendations was woefully short, and so they looked for someone else to help them. Mr. Powers would gladly hand them a stack of books and be able to book talk them all. Mr. Powers was a reader, just like them, and so they flocked to his library.

That day, filled with their truths, I knew I had a problem, and not just a classroom library one either, which will be discussed further later in this book. Instead, I had a reading role model problem, which was now leading to a reading community problem. This is not uncommon; in fact, research has suggested that when “Teachers are not knowledgeable about children’s literature; they are not able to introduce students to the wealth of books available, and they may not recognize the effects of their teaching methods on students’ attitude toward reading” (Short and Pierce 1990). I thought I had done what great reading teachers did; we had a library, we had choice, and we had time to read, all modeled after the teaching of the literacy books I had read. I supported students throughout my instruction and I took copious notes when we conferred. This is what successful teachers of reading did; I had, after all, done my research. Yet, those components were clearly not enough. Those components by themselves would not foster the love of reading that I had envisioned when I set out to be a teacher. There was a void that needed to be filled, and it was now up to us, as a community, to figure out what was needed to create a classroom where reading was a cornerstone of who we were as a community, and not just another class on our schedule. And I had to realize just how vital my role as a reading adult was for this change to happen. We know that having reading role models at home significantly impacts a child’s success with reading in school (Lin 2003; Clark, Osborne, and Dugdale 2009), yet for some of our students this is not the reality they live in. For these children, it is even more important that we become the reading role model they may not have at home. However, I have also found that for some of my students who do, indeed, have powerful reading role models at home, this is not enough for them to become voracious readers themselves. They see those at home reading but do not always fall into the habits themselves. These children also need us to be reading role models, albeit in a different way. And so I discovered that It was not that I needed to be the best reader in the room, it was that I needed to be an example of what reading looks like after you have left school. That I needed to dedicate the same level of investment that I was asking of my students.

Consequently, on that day, four years into teaching, I realized that merely having some books and time to read them was not enough and would never inspire students to fall in love with the reading experience. Those who hated reading would never become readers who influenced others to read unless I changed the way I taught reading. Unless I changed the very reading conversation we were having. Unless I finally connected my own reading identity with that of being a reading teacher and then taught through my own love of reading rather than just following a curriculum. This therefore becomes our very first change for creating passionate readers in our learning communities; admitting or cultivating our own love of reading first. For our students to become passionate readers, we must, therefore, become visible ones ourselves.

Now—Teacher as a Reading Role Model

Teachers can be better reading role models by not acting like they have to read harder books because they’re older, and instead reading books at our level so kids and teachers can connect.

—Burke, seventh grader

On the very first day of our new year together, the very first thing my new students do is to select which picture book I should read aloud for them. It never fails; my seventh graders cannot believe that they are starting with a picture book; after all, they are not little children anymore. And yet, as they vote on the one they want to hear, a familiar hush falls over the room as the students inch closer for story time. On the very first day of the new year, my students are introduced to two very large parts of my reading identity—my abundant love of picture books, as well as my firm belief that reading needs to be fun and filled with choice. Once the book is done, I wait for their reaction. They seem to always stare at me, waiting for a list of questions, but instead I ask them, “What did you think?” and their voices come to life as they react to the story. Thus the very first piece of what will become our learning community reading mosaic has been placed.

Yet, in that moment, I not only choose picture books as a way to make my own reading identity a focal point, but also to offer it up as a way to start our reading conversations. By offering a small glimpse into what I love as a reader, it in turn sets the stage for students to contemplate what they love. It allows them to start questioning what they think a middle school English class will feel like, because most students certainly are not expecting picture books. In fact, as Emily wrote, “I think teachers should use picture books with kids because we normally are told to read chapter books, yet as a seventh grader you get kind of bored reading books with no pictures and you miss being a kid.” By 12 years old, some of my students miss being a child … so part of my mission is to remind them of the original love they felt for reading when they first discovered it. Thus knowing myself and how I developed as a reader, intentionally drives the instruction as students start to explore their own identities; this exploration becomes part of our foundation as a passionate reading community. For me, this student-focused and -driven exploration is vital because the learning community is not about us as educators, it is about the very students we teach.

So as you think of your own reading identity, what comes to mind? What great experiences have you had with reading? What are the not so great ones? How have you developed as an adult reader versus how you identified as a child learning to read? These are all things that we should reflect on as we decide what type of reading environment and, indeed, experience, we would like to create for our students. Because whether we know it or not, these are the very things that drive us forward in our instruction, and so if we are not aware of our biases then we will have no way of controlling them when we teach. Whatever we choose to not love in our reading instruction is not given much attention by the students. While we may follow lesson plans, we ultimately decide how we will teach something, and students are masters at recognizing when we, as teachers, are merely going through the motions. That means that how we feel about reading will directly influence how all of the students we teach also feel about reading. As a middle school teacher, I take that notion incredibly seriously; after all, I teach more than 130 students. If I do not love reading and proclaim it loudly, then what will become of all of those students? Simply put, we must be readers ourselves, if we are to instill a love of reading. Like Kaylee says, “Teachers should show us how much they enjoy reading to help us love reading more.”

Questions to ponder as you consider your own reading identity (by no means an exhaustive list):

• Are you a reader? If yes, why? If no, why not?
• What types of books do you reach for when you are relaxing?
• What types of books do you abandon?
• How quickly do you abandon a book?
• How do you share what you have read with others?
• Whom do you share it with?
• What would you like to do when you have finished a book?
• How do you do in book discussions?
• What are your book gaps, meaning what do you not read?
• Would you consider yourself a bad, average, or good reader?
• What type of reading experience would you like your students to have?

Within our own exploration of reading identity, we should uncover cornerstones to build our learning community reading environment on. Within our own experiences as a reader, we can start to consider the identities that our students bring with them. What are things that propelled us toward books or further away from them? How do we react in our adult lives when given reading tasks such as summarizing, analysis, or discussion? Most adults do not like to create a project—a written report, summary, or craft—after finishing their book, and yet how often have we asked stud...