Do Your Students See You as a Reader & a Writer?
Seeing is believing and that certainly rings true when teaching your students reading and writing. One day several years ago, I had an epiphany about the reason my students weren't exhibiting reading and writing behaviors. I needed to share MY reading and writing life with my students. This included ME reading and writing for the same purposes and using the same skills I was asking my students to use. I immediately changed my lesson plans to include a daily sharing of my own reading and writing life as part of my focus lesson. When I planned a writing prompt or reading response, I wrote mine before I ever asked students to do the task. This helped me think about the mental processes students needed in order to do the task. It also helped me to determine what I needed to demonstrate for my students. This simple change of making time to read and write (model) in front of my students each day transformed my room to be more of a community of learners.
I also committed to doing book talks 3x's per week. My students needed to see me as a reader and writer to know that what I was teaching them was true.
What do you do as you read? How can you provide precise demonstrations for your students? What do you think about as you write for a specific purpose? How can you show your students that side of you?
