Relationship Matters
“Reading is the gateway skill that makes all
other learning possible.”
— Barack Obama
Thursday night after school, whenever possible, and in between lockdowns, my daughter Evie and I stop at a little bakery in Melbourne and sit down to have a hot chocolate and a cookie and talk about the day’s events. It is time that I treasure greatly. This week, we were talking about books and what she is reading at school. Evie became incredibly animated as she gave me the most colourful run down of the book and the activities that the class were undertaking to draw out the underlying themes of the book. It got me thinking (“Not again,” my wife would say!), if this talented teacher can generate such excitement and enthusiasm, then it was worth sharing exactly what was going on in her class.
My daughter’s class, like every class, has a range of reading abilities and the teacher has sat down with all of them and discussed their current reading level and what they need to do next to improve. Tick! At the start of the year, the students completed a reading inventory to find out what books they like reading and the teacher made sure those books were always available in the class. Tick! Shared Reading involves a more complex book and students reading at lower levels get to engage with more complex, colourful and interesting texts as a way of creating greater interest in reading. Tick! All of this lines up strongly with the research and what I believe is important in classrooms.
There are many more powerful ideas that can be deployed in classrooms and I am not dismissing any of them.
However, the biggest tick this wonderful teacher gets from me is the effort she has gone to in building relationships
with the children and their families. She uses this knowledge to get students to think more deeply about the books they read using carefully thought out questions and real life ‘hooks’ that get the students invested in the book.
When the reader draws connections with the book and their experiences, this is so powerful.
Evie has always loved reading but now she is powering through books at an alarming rate and has become pretty ‘chummy’ with the local bookstore owner and the librarian who are choosing books ready for her next visit. I have been ‘banging on’ about data a bit lately but if you analyse this story, the creative way in which this teacher is gathering evidence about these kids is awesome. Data isn’t always found in a spreadsheet!