Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Before I start discussing teaching and posting my Anchor Charts and lessons, I need to give shout outs to all the people/books whose ideas influence my teaching.  Sometimes it is straight up from these books and sometimes I have adopted and modified their ideas.  So when it comes to reading, the ideas on this blog will probably come from books or conferences I have went to involving these awesome passion-driven teachers.

First it was Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning,  I can't remember a time before I read it, but I think it was introduced to me by a member of my former 1st grade team.   Several of my former colleagues and I happily got to go to one of her one day workshops when Teaching with Intention came out (another fine book).  Once I started putting her ideas in practice in my 1st grade class, I finally felt like students were really thinking and learning.  I am so glad I did because now I know that 1st graders can become fabulous reader's and thinkers and so can 2nd-5th graders.  

Then I think the same 1st grade colleague (shout out to Heidi) introduced me to the Daily 5 by the Two Sisters, and we were off and running with it.  I love this book!  Because honestly, I just never was a "Center" person the way Centers were explained and taught to me before.  They frustrated me and I felt like that 30 minutes was chaos in my classroom,  and that I must be doing something terribly wrong.  This book transformed my classroom and my students' lives as they become better readers and writers.  And now, most importunity, we were INDEPENDENT, loving-reading, readers and writers.  If you haven't read this book yet, do it!  But read the whole book because if you try to piecemeal it together between the Internet and Pinterest, it will not reach its full potential in your classroom. 

The year after I started using The Daily 5, The Cafe Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literacy Assessment and Instruction was published.  I struggled with this book at first because I was still trying to teach my Basal and do the whole 60 minutes whole group, 30 minutes small group thing.  That does not work with this book or really with the Daily 5.  So finally with the co-teaching help of my kind Literacy Coach (shout out to Terri), we transitioned to a Reading Workshop class. Yeah! Even more time for the students to read, write, and think.  Now you need to know my back story, which is my first public school teaching job was at a Reading First school, which means you were not allowed to do Reader's Workshop.  You taught from the reading series, exactly, only from the reading series.  So even though I had been moving toward Reader's Workshop for years, it took me a bit to throw off the shackles and embrace it.  I knew it was right because I felt so free and teaching didn't feel as forced.