Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher

 

Genre: Educationa, Informational

Source: I purchased a copy

If you are a teacher or a homeschooling parent and don't know how to teach your children the important skills of writing based on real-world experiences, then this is the book you need.

Kelly is a wealth of knowledge in this area. His students are taught from the first day that writing is very important in his class. There are nine chapters in this book.  One of my favorites was the chapter called Express and Reflect.  I have been a reflective writer for years. I have had my students reflect on their work. I never considered teaching them the difference between expressive writing and reflective writing.  Throughout the book he makes it clear that you need to demonstrate with the kids what you are trying to teach them. Show them that you too make mistakes in writing and that writing is hard, but reachable.  The book is full of not only his examples, but also student examples. We as a teacher get to see his teaching method throughout the book.  I have read this book at least three times. I learn something new every single time.  I recommend all teachers take a look at this book.

Why It's Important to Read With Your Child

 

https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/parents-teaching-girl-read_8218054.htm#query=parent%20child%20reading&position=30&from_view=keyword&track=ais

Reading to or with your child is important at any age. Near the end of this school year I had a parent come to me and tell me she wanted to pick my brain about getting her daughter to read over the summer. I teach middle school and this young lady was getting ready to enter high school.  Let me give you a little bit of background on this family.  I had daughter one five or six years before I had daughter two in my class. They were polar opposites.  Daughter one devoured books. In the classroom she would often lead discussions about books or texts we were reading.   Daughter two was very compliant, but made it clear she just didn't really like to read. Her older sister tried to help her. She would recommend and pass on books she thought her younger sister would enjoy. I watched daughter two spend over a month with a book. I asked her if she enjoyed it and she told me no. I asked why she had forced herself to continue reading it and she told me because her sister said it was so good. Here are some things I had to teach this young lady and maybe they will help you.

First, make a list of things you like, or things you think you would like to read about. This young girl liked reading about real life things. That is why she thought she would like the book her sister had recommended.  Then she said she liked books where there was some drama in it. Drama could be in the form of bullying, friends fighting, small beginning romances (teen issues not sex related).  

The second thing she said to me was that she hated books that were too long. She was a slow reader and felt it would take her forever to read a book.  That was another issue with the book her sister had given her. It had taken her a month and she lost interest.  I took the information she had given me and pulled eight to ten books from my shelves. Some of them I told her I had not yet read. She picked the book Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings. The next thing I did was asked her how long she wanted to take to read the book. I told her to give me the exact number of days. Then I pulled out my little sticky tabs  (this is just one of the types I use). The book has 224 pages. She wanted to read the book in 14 days.  This meant she would need to read at least 16 pages a day. I put a tab every 16 pages give or take.  If a page didn't end with a period or was one or two pages from the end of the chapter then I moved the tab. I had created this system with my own daughter who was a reluctant reader. I do this when I have multiple books I am reading to review and have a deadline. It is an accountability piece for me, as you can see from my book below.

Not only did this young lady read the book in less than fourteen days, she talked to all of her classmates about it. To read it,  I actually had to take the book home the day she returned it so I could give it to the next kid who wanted to read it. She had talked to me about the book as she was reading and kept telling me I had to read the book.

Teaching kids how to pick a book they might like, and when it is okay to abandon a book is just one part of making a reader out of a reluctant child. Showing them how to break a book into manageable chunks helps.  The next step was easy. I told the parent, who wanted to keep the reading going over the summer to discuss with her daughter what book they could read together. Then I told her to schedule a time once or twice a week that they would discuss what they liked or didn't like about the book. I encouraged her to go to the library or the bookstore with her daughter so they could choose their next book. 

So what prompted me to write this post?  I read this post from "Everyday Reading"  in this post she talks about how to move from picture books to chapter books with your children. I realized very few people think about or realize that for reluctant middle school and even high school kids, there are strategies to help them transition as well.

Once Upon a Time by Sheryl Green

Genre: Informational writing

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Chapter 1 gets you right into the writing. The author of this book gives ten writing prompts and then does something wonderful. She asks two or three questions about the prompt to help move the writer forward. That is one thing my students often struggle with. They choose a prompt but don’t know how to move forward.

Chapter two deals with moving forward when you get writer’s block. She offers a lot of hints and tips to help you with this problem. Then you get ten more writing prompts.

Chapter three dealt with the elements of a story. You know what I am talking about. You create a world, and then populate that world with characters you have created.  Then you are given more tips and finally ten more writing prompts.

Chapter four is where the real work begins. You’ve written a story and this chapter teaches you how to make it better through editing and revision. This of course is followed by more tips and then ten more prompts.

This book is beneficial for children and adults alike. I can see me using this in my classroom at school. I highly recommend this book

Think Smart Not Hard: 52 Principles to Success and Happiness by Roy Huff

Genre: Self-help, Inspirational

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Heads up! This is probably one of the longest posts I've written in a long time.

This isn’t a book you can read through like a novel. I will even say that some parts may be difficult for you to read.  I grew up when I was younger thinking  that most everyone around me was much more talented than I was. That is unless you talked about teaching. I wanted to be a teacher from fourth grade on.  I was positive I would be a teacher, even when my family and friends told me all the reasons I didn’t want to be a teacher. The way we see and react to life shapes us.  The principles in this book were not new to me. I grew up from my teens on reading self-help and positive thinking books.  However, I never applied all the things I learned.  In Roy’s book, the first principle he mentions is forgiving those who don’t deserve it.   After reading that section I realized that I and my husband were both letting a situation hold us back. Instead of forgiving those involved we felt didn’t deserve it, we actually used it as an excuse.  That was the hardest principle to work on.

For years I let the fear of failure hold me back.  Then I learned about Thomas Edison and how many times he failed in his attempts to make a working lightbulb. His attitude was he wasn’t a failure, he just learned that many ways that it wouldn’t work.  As a teacher I am familiar with creating action plans. Since I am a National Board Certified Teacher and I teach at an IB school reflection has been a part of my life. We teach our students to reflect on their work daily, weekly, etc.  I and my fellow co-workers do the same. This is probably the most important part of my job.  However, I’ve also moved it into my personal life as well.   Principle # 13 was important to me for a multitude of reasons. Compartmentalizing teaches you to be fully present when attending a task. I have learned how to do that. But something Roy said rang so true in so many ways. He talked about how watching a TV program when someone keeps talking to you makes it harder for you to focus. I have an elderly mother who lives with me and this happens quite often when I am sitting in the same room with her trying to work or watch the news.  But it took reading this book for me to realize that I do this to my students. I give them a task, check for clarification, set them to work and the every once in a while I say something to them that pulls them right out of their work. This is something I am definitely working on correcting.

I laughed when I read that Principle #12 was “Make a Calendar”. My family and co-workers tease me about my calendars. Yes, I have one for my job, and one for my life. I even keep both together on an online calendar. But, at the beginning of my summer break I discovered something on my online calendar that changed my life. It was a simple button called “Tasks”. I had always ignored it. It combined several things into one. It  allowed me to get rid of my plethora of lists that I kept with each calendar. Now I can schedule it on my online calendar and prioritize things by creating a “Tasks” list.  Those who tease me about having two physical calendars don’t understand that if I have no access to my online calendar, I at least have the safety net of my physical ones.  We each must find what works for us.  Roy’s book is a list of great principals. What makes his book stand out from so many others are the personal stories and lessons that go along with them.  Those will resonate with you in so many ways.

 Other principles that I found of value was # 15 “Learn to Say No” and # 49 “Identify your weaknesses. These two have  always been my problem, and then I would get overwhelmed. We got a new assistant principal last year.  It was a particularly rough year for me. As department chair I took on all the tasks of my entirely new department.  It actually backfired because I was not able to do everyone else’s job and mine and do them adequately.  My AP is the one who helped me learn to say No.  He literally would step in and tell people no on my behalf until I became strong enough to do it on my own. It was him who pointed out that this was the only weakness he saw in me.  I take everything he says and truly think about it. Then I work on those areas that I know to be weaknesses.

Another principle was to choose to be happy.  I have always tried to be happy.  One of the reasons I allowed myself to feel like I was less talented than others in my family was because of something that happened in my family when I was a young teen. Some in my family belittled me because of the way I chose to handle the situation. It was a very depressing and devastating situation and I chose to move beyond it and be happy. For others in my family it became all consuming and created anger and bitterness. I learned a long time ago to choose happy. That doesn’t mean I am never sad.

Finally #’50 and 51 meant a lot to me. Number 50 says to do something small, but do it daily. For me that is writing. I don’t care if it is a poem. I couple of lines in my work in progress. I continually add to it each and every day. The other important one was # 51 which was Don’t give up when you get off track. Life will pull you off track. The trick is to work to get back on.  This has probably been the most beneficial of all of his principles. People fail in life because they get off track and give up. I choose not to give up. I have a student who was involved in a terrible accident last year. He missed most of the school year. Then had to be homeschooled for the rest of the year. He was comparing himself to other students in the classroom. I reminded him that after his accident we didn’t know if he would survive. He had to learn to walk and talk all over again. He can’t process things the way he used to. However, he has learned to break things down into little pieces and continue to move forward. I reminded him of the tortoise and the hare. He smiled and said, “the tortoise won because he kept moving forward.”  We have a right to not only read and learn from these principles but we have an obligation through our words and actions to share these principles with those around us.

I highly recommend this book.  It is a book I will refer back to often because there is so much to be learned and reminded of with this book.