Things to do when teaching reading as joy

Read widely.
Allow free response.
Share what you love to read.
Share ideas about thinking processes which support the enjoyment of reading.  (When have you experienced something similar, whatdoes this remind you of, remember when, those kinds of things)
Teach the craft of excellent texts (word choice, images, structures, patterns, voice), using the language of the craft for discussion.
Talk [...]

Things not do to when teaching reading as joy

Do not make them read it.
Do not make the decoding accuracy or details the point of the exercise.
Do not make it a competition.
Do not make them finish every book they start.
Do not make the message in the story the point.
Do not follow up with entertaining activities loosely based on the story.
(Pleasures of Children’s Literature . [...]

Reading for pleasure – how’s that?

I love to read. I will read almost any genre of text. I have particularly been a lover of science fiction and mystery or spy fiction. I don’t know how I learned to enjoy books. In, The Pleasures of Children’s Literature, Nodelman and Reimer invite the reader to consider which strategies they [...]

Trouble with Liveblogging

I tried to live blog today. For some reason when I went to save my post it was lost. I don’t know if it was a server problem or a connection problem or an error on my part. It is frustrating though. I think I would probably just open up in [...]

Goal Setting – Not usually my department

I got tagged.  I love getting tagged.  It feels like a online hug so I feel compelled to take part in the meme despite the fact that I’m not my family’s goal setter, it is my husband’s job to dream big.  I ask the hard questions.  “How, when, in what order and Are you crazy?”
So [...]

A colonial brain trying to be post-colonial

I have been attending Congress 2007 and am trying to process some of what I have taken in there. I have attended quite a number of workshops but most of them have carried a similar thread about the importance of telling stories, hearing stories, writing stories and talking about stories, particularly our own stories [...]

Snow Tunnel Sisters – Leah Dorion

Snow Tunnel Sisters is the story of two sisters and their time together in the winter.  The story told with the express purpose of showing the experiences of a loving Metis family and in particular the two sisters as they play in the snow.  The story could have used some rewriting for added tension and more [...]

Fox walked alone – Barbara Reid

In Fox walked alone, Barbara Reid spins a story to explain how the animals came to Noah’s Ark.  An interesting companion to her Two by Two story which follows the story of the Ark.  Rhyming couplets and engaging art make this story an enjoyable read.  Barbara Reid knows how to vary perspective and add details which [...]

Snow – Joan Clark

In Joan Clark’s Snow, a young boy imagines what is under all the mountains of snow which cover his neighbourhood through the winter.   The story is simple and seems a pale comparison to Ezra Keat’s Snowy Day but the illustrations are lovely and invite further imagination and extension by the reader.  The ending certainly draws [...]

Rex Zero and the End of the World – T. WynneJones

I like the fresh new paper of Rex Zero. I know it’s irrelevent but it is one of the pleasures of reading a new book, if there was a date stamp I’d bet I am the first to crack this book.
This book can be classified as historical fiction but feels more deliberately fun versus [...]