The Brown Bag Teacher

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Building Excitement for Reading (Reading in the Wild: Chapter 2)

Happy Thursday, friends! Today marks the third week of our Reading in the Wild summer book study. If you are just joining us and missed the first week (Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read) or second week (Creating a Workshop Schedule that Works for You), make sure to check them out!

In Reading in the Wild, Chapter 2: Wild Readers Self-Select Reading Material, Donalyn Miller shares about giving students the opportunity to share about books they are loving with their peers, as well as, ways to build excitement for reading. Making reading awesome and letting students share their reading helps develop reading preference, as well as, structured opportunities for self-selecting good-fit books! Today I wanted to zoom-in on the idea of building excitement and share how reading has become awesome in our classroom. 

Throughout the year, one staple in our classroom was our monthly book display. From bullying to banned literature, we loved welcoming new books into our classroom and learning about difficult topics through these displays. These displays were often large, in-your-face visuals that highlighted books that students may have not normally picked up to read. Below I’ve shared a few of my favorite displays. Click on the descriptions above each photo or the photos themselves to learn how each display evolved and what books were featured!

We celebrated Banned Book Week in mid-September and explored the idea that some books, some words have so much power or affect that people want to hide/keep them away from other people. It was a fabulous unit of study!
In October we focused on bullying and its effects, as we observed Bullying Prevention Month with this display.
One of my favorite displays was this beast. My boys LOVED war books, and requested a special war-themed display. With the help of my handy Xacto knife and a Sunday evening, my boys were in L.O.V.E. with our December World War II display!
Then, celebrating Black History Month in February, we focused on biographies and autobiographies as we, once again, explored how powerful words can be.
With UK pride in our hearts, my students and I created our own March Madness – Tournament of Books! To see the initial installment of our book bracket, click here. You can check out the results and process in a later post, here.
In addition to highlighting quality literature, one of the key components in creating a community of readers has been giving students the opportunity to share their favorite books with their friends. 5th graders are SO social and so talkative. Harnessing these ‘talents’ for reading have been crucial. In the fall, we hosted our first Book Museum using Augmented Reality. You can click here to read more about these Augmented Reality Book Talk on my guest post at All Things Upper Elementary!
Additionally, one of our favorite weekly traditions was the Book Raffle to introduce new books in our classroom. Miller talks about the book raffle in this chapter and I followed her set-up pretty closely. See our book raffle in action in this post! 🙂

Finally, acting as Miller’s version of the book commercial, we used Book Blurbs to share about our favorite reads. Using a paper clip and tape, we attached these blurbs to books on our display shelves. As students looked for a new book, they had the opportunity to get their classmates’ opinions. Read more about these blurbs and snag the template here!

These are just a few of the ways I build excitement for reading and encourage students to self-select their reading material. Reading a book blurb, watching an Augmented Reality video, or winning a book raffle are all ways students have ownership of their reading. How do  you promote reading ownership in your classroom? What ways do you build excitement for reading? Please share by linking up your posts/ideas. If you’re not a blogger, that’s great, too! You can read/follow and comment. We want to hear your advice, thoughts, and ideas for the classroom, too. The more teachers we have joining, the more amazing our classrooms will be this fall! Next week, we will be reading Chapter 2:  Curating a Classroom Library.

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Comments

  2. 4th Grade Racers says

    July 3, 2014 at 3:50 pm

    Wow! I love your book displays! I am trying to think of a place in our room where they could happen, probably on a smaller scale.

    I also plan on implementing book raffles! I just loved that idea too!

    Reply

  4. Wendy P says

    July 3, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    Awesome post. Very inspiring! I can't wait to start a few of these in my new classroom. I also love to read what my students recommend so I and talk with them about the book. They are often shocked when they realize I actually did read it.

    Reply

  5. JS says

    July 3, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    Thank you for your awesome ideas! I love these displays and activities to get kids psyched about books! What a great post!

    Reply

  11. Karli Lomax says

    July 4, 2014 at 10:55 am

    Hi Catherine,
    What an excellent post! Lots of inspiring ideas! Even though I teach first grade, I can still modify and implement them to complement our reading workshop and "reading culture" in our classroom. Busy with summer travel, I haven't had the chance to read the other posts, but will make time to do so- this is a fabulous linky! Thanks for sharing 🙂
    Happy 4th,
    Karli
    Creating a Thoughtful Classroom

    Reply

  14. Carrie Garrison says

    July 11, 2014 at 1:28 pm

    Where in your room do you put these bulletin boards? Is it the wall on next to the genre wall? I was trying to figure that out, but not sure. I love this idea and will possibly try it this year!

    Reply

    • Kate says

      July 12, 2014 at 4:34 pm

      Hi Carrie! I usually put them above my nonfiction bookcase (that's where I have room) but will occasionally put them above above the series bookshelves

      Reply

  15. Marlene says

    July 12, 2014 at 6:57 pm

    Great ideas! Will be thinking how to use some of these in my 3rd grade class. I used to do book talks, which are like book commercials, and got away from it last year. Need to bring those back.

    Marlene
    I Heart Teaching Elementary

    Reply

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