Words have Power

Just like  I urged my colleagues a few years ago to use the terms: NEW WORDS and FUTURE BOOKS, here is a blog post about working with students who take their time reading (being slow ≠ bad).
Quick Summary: We should be empowering students' love of reading. We need to help build their confidence, and help them realize they types of texts they love to read.
Using words with negative connotations works against these goals.



NEW WORDS - they aren't hard, you just haven't come across them before and need to work them out


FUTURE BOOKS - aren't hard books, you just need some more practice before you are ready to enjoy these type of books


DIFFERENT RATES OF READING - they are JUST different: not good or bad

• Help students realize and understand:
• too fast and you might miss details, too slow and you might not understand everything 
• find the speed that's right for you: 
• can you hear a voice in your head? 
• does it sound similar to how you talk? 
• can you visualize you are inside of the book? 
• do you understand everything that you are reading and feel like you are inside of the text? 
• PRACTICE TOGETHER REGULARLY
• during: guided reading, conferring, book clubs
• once a week, or monthly, with whole class performances

Building a sense of community and acceptance

In any classroom I feel it is important to build a community of learners that care for each other. Students need to truly care for each others feelings, respect their differences, and want to help each other learn to have a high functioning classroom. This is a difficult task to fully accomplish, in my opinion.


This school year I am going to check out some of these books to educate about diversity. This variety of books looks at cultural diversity, and tolerance through many different lenses. 

This list has books that focus more on being yourself and accepting other people's differences.

The Washington Post shares 3 books that many help teach about diversity too.


Hopefully I can create a fun and meaningful after reading activity that links what we read to learning and personality differences as well. I will share later if I'm able to do this.

With any luck, this first step will help me create a peaceful and empowering classroom environment.


Good luck and have a happy school year!