From the Office of the Future of Reading

Please join me in welcoming today's guest blogger, Shannon Clark:

• Wife to 1 husband
• Mother of 3 children
• Owner of 7 dogs, many horses, cows, and donkeys
• 6th grade teacher, B.A. in criminal justice, Master’s in childhood education, ED.S. in elementary education, ponders quite often about becoming a NBCT
• Alabama country girl who loves to drive a tractor
• Lover of running, reading, teaching
• Shannon blogs here

Shannon Clark

Passionate About Reading

Passion can be love or hate because it’s any powerful feeling you have about something. The dictionary defines it as:

pas·sion

 [pash-uhn]

noun

1.

any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.

2.

strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/passion

Most of us are passionate about something: God, family, animals, eating, exercising, sports, television, reading, shopping….

One of my passions is reading. It always has been. Sure I’ve had lulls in my reading life, especially during my teen years, but it’s always resurfaced. Passion doesn’t die; in some cases, it just becomes dormant until a spark reignites it.

I became a reader at the ripe age of FOUR. See, on Sunday afternoons after church a quiet peace would settle in our house as everyone read something. A book. A newspaper. Whatever. Since I couldn’t read, I’ve been told that I would whine, fuss, complain, and cry that IT JUST WASN’T FAIR. WHY DOES EVERYONE ELSE GET TO READ AND I CAN’T???????? These little tantrums worked. I was enrolled by my mom, an avid reader, in kindergarten a whole year early. Insert smile and happy dance here!!!

So for 2 years, I attended kindergarten and learned to read. Dick and Jane were 2 of my closest childhood friends. And I’ve had many, many, many book friends since then.

As a teacher of readers, I want my students to see me as a reader. I want them to see my passion for reading. So what do I do to make my passion for reading visible? I talk the talk and walk the walk. At the beginning of the year, I challenge all of them to read more books than me for the school year. I like to throw that in there! The first few days of reading workshop I read while they read. I bring my current book to school. I talk about my love of books. I talk about the books I’ve loved. I talk about my relationship with my book characters. During our daily read aloud, I let them see my connection to these characters in the way I read, the way I laugh, and sometimes the way I cry. I ask them what they are reading. I ask them how they like what they are reading. I ask them about their reading.

This year I even tried something new- My Book Door. 

How much more visible could I get?

My students can see at a glance WHAT I’ve read and HOW MUCH I’ve read. And how much more I’ve read than them. Wink-wink!

I only hope that this passion I have for reading has some kind of influence on the readers in my classroom: the avid readers, the reluctant readers, the non-readers. If my reading passion touches them in any positive way, then I will feel successful as a teacher of these very young and oh, so impressionable readers.

By the way, WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Thank you Shannon for your passion for reading and for spreading it around! And in answer to your question, I am reading the latest installment in Tom Angleberger's Origami Yoda series, Princess Label Maker to the Rescue!