I read The Book Whisperer in one sitting, only stopping to text updates to my work friends. This book has completely shifted my approach to wide reading in the classroom for 2021.

Donalyn Miller is a passionate sixth-grade teacher who has eschewed entrenched class reading program practices that often go uninterrogated, in favour of an intentional, integrated focus on substantial independent reading during instructional time, led by student choice. The thesis is simple: let students choose what they read, let them read. It sounds like common sense, but overstuffed curricula and hyperfocus on testing often relegates reading to homework. I confess that while I pay lip service to the importance of reading but I don’t prioritise or model it in the classroom.

❕ This was a game changing insight for me: the literary and narrative concepts or skills that student need to learn don’t HAVE to come from a set text. It’s arguably better pedagogy to introduce them (maybe in a shorter text) and then move to students applying their understanding independently to one of the texts they have read as part of an integrated wide reading program. It sounds so simple and obvious, but I, like many English teachers, get so caught up in complex programs that I have deprioritised reading, something we have known for decades improves all manner of literacy skills.

TO TEACH? 🍎
This book is now firmly in my teaching resource canon. I borrowed my copy from the library but I will be buying a physical copy for my desk at work that I can annotate and lend to colleagues. I would highly recommend it as an inspiring, practical and edifying resource for any ELA teacher.

💙💙💙💙💙