Throughout my life my experiences with reading have varied. As a kid, my parents would read to us every night which was something I loved. Because of this, I loved reading on my own and really enjoyed it. As I went through school, I started not to enjoy reading as much as I did. It was more of a chore. Some of the books we had to read weren't exactly interesting. Occasionally I would be re inspired to read if I read something good in school. In high school and college, I really only read for school not for enjoyment. It wasn't till my adult years that my love of reading returned. I enjoy reading, it is something that relaxes me. Being off in the summers, I do a lot of reading especially when I'm at the beach.
When teaching reading, I try to choose books that will interest my students. When I first started teaching I used the reading textbooks with my students, but I myself was bored with the majority of stories in them. I then decided to use trade book instead. I try to choose a variety of books that I know will interest my students. I have found that my students truly enjoy using trade books and they often choose books that they want to read.
The activities I do when reading a book vary. I pull a lot of ideas from the concept of literature circles but I modify a lot of it since I teach special ed. I also do a lot of story mapping and webbing. Technology has impacted the way I teach reading because it offers a lot of different things my students can do while reading a book. My students love to create character webs, especially on the program Inspirations. I'm looking forward to learning about the comic book creator--I know my students will love it!
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2 comments:
How do you teach literature circles? Do you start them in the spring? We hardly have any time for reading because of our schedule. I have it officially 3X a week with a total of 1 1/2 hour. I use it as independent work when they are finished early with an assignment in another subject. I will be starting literature circles after the NJASK4 this week. Last year we had repetitive jobs and I want to do something a little different like book clubs with more flexibility. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to accomplish all of this, but I'm willint to try.
It's funny to read how many people say that they got back into their love of reading as adults. It also makes me more hopeful for our students, that they will find their love of reading something later in their lives rather than not at all.
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