Blog Post 3: Olivia Boykin’s Routman Chapter 3

This chapter truly did speak to me because I am a life-long reader of anything and everything I can and could get my hands on to read.  Cereal boxes, drink containers, books of any reading level – it didn’t matter to me, I just wanted to read.  The same holds true today.  I can get lost in a book for hours and have no idea time has so quickly passed.  I reread books so many times they often fall apart – into multiple pieces.  I have owned and passed on so many books I can’t even imagine having to count the total.  I love having both a personal library at my home as well as a classroom library at school.  I do wish I had more room both places but, sadly, I don’t. 

I love that Routman expresses her love of reading to her students and I love the way in which she phrases it on page 24.  “…I want students to know I am compelled to read.  It is almost impossible for me not to read…Reading pervades my life and sustains me the same way friendship and love do.  Reading gives me joy, comfort, perspective, new ideas, questions to ponder, and connections to other lives.  I want nothing less for my students.”  She does, indeed, sum up my own feelings about reading so perfectly.  I’ll now be taking pictures of every library in my own home to share with my students.  I want to explain to them how they can and should keep up with what and who they read.  They need to record their opinions on each book, as well, to remind themselves if they want to read more by that author or more of a certain series.  I like that she admitted that she tried to keep a daily log of what and how much she read and found that it was “tedious and inauthentic” (p. 34) so she stopped doing that after just a few weeks.  She wants students to enjoy reading again, as I do.  She believes, as do I, that to require students to record so much information takes away from the enjoyment of reading.  I want them to find books that interest them and, if they can’t find something that makes their eyes light up from within, I want to help them find that special “something.”  I want children to devour books with ferociousness.  I want them to lose themselves in whatever it is they have chosen to read – be it a nonfiction book about earthquakes, a fairy tale about a girl with long blonde hair who lives in a tower, or a guidebook about the most magical place on Earth.  I do want them to discuss with friends (and with me) what they liked and didn’t like about the last book they read.  Having a list of “want to read books,” “who would like this book,” and “what I thought about this book” makes so much sense and we can incorporate technology into these lists in several different ways, only one of which would be Padlet.  I, personally, love a “cool” notebook and enjoy writing down my book titles, authors, and feelings about the book on a piece of paper.  Some students cringe when they have to hold a pencil and put thought to paper but see it as a game when they get to type.  As long as they are reading and sharing about what they read, it doesn’t matter to me the method.  Loving to read is loving to read – and that is half the battle.  =)