It was sad to see
this book end, because as a future teacher I wanted to learn more and more
about her practices and her classroom. I wanted a day to day detail outline so that I can produce the same type of results.
As Donalyn Miller is close to ending the year with her students you can
see the gains she has made in creating lifelong readers. “I end the year in the same way that I began:
sitting in my green chair, reading. Not reading
in front of them as much as reading with them” (162). Providing her students as a great role model
as lifelong reader, her students have began to mimic her, they are reading far
more then they have ever read in a class and they are making book suggestions
and recommendations to other students.
Reading is beginning to be their life.
So it was very sad to read when she retells of former students coming back
to her class to tell about their new classes where they do not get to choose
their book, or even have to keep them in plastic bags as if they were small
children, and are required to read whole class novels below their reading
level.
“Instilling
lifelong reading habits in my students is like trying to hold the ocean back
with a broom, a futile endeavor, if they are going to go right back to the same
controlling environment they had before my class” (165). There are so many teachers who teach reading
the same way they were taught, where students are not actually reading and they
are bombarded with worksheets and sample test questions. If Donalyn Miller can find books, research
and documents proving her method and practice are the best way to teach
students to read and become avid readers, why must we follow traditional
practices? I would say a big reason might
be change, no one likes to change their curriculum or how they manage their
classroom and another reason could be support.
In order to keep with the progression of Miller’s students in higher
grades there has to be some sort of shift and collaboration between colleagues
and administration. “The students who
read the most are the best at every part of school – reading, writing,
researching, content – specific knowledge, all of it (170). The goal should be for our students to
succeed and gain a love of reading.