We all worry about balancing our children's reading lives. We want them to have choice and to become lifelong readers. As teachers, we work hard to make school reading authentic, but even with the best intentions, sometimes children get the wrong messages about school vs. home reading.
As parents, many of us have seen the impact on the messages our students get about reading being different at school and at home. Years ago, I wrote an article about shopping with my daughter, Ana, who was then 6 years old. I loved watching her book choices and wished she could have the same freedom choosing books at school. (You can access the article at Choice Literacy.) We have also all heard of stories of the home reading bag where students are required to read books at their "level" instead of books they love. Lisa Koch wrote an article about the impact this home reading had on her son in, "My Son, Clark Kent", also at Choice Literacy.
As a classroom teacher, I have always struggled with reading homework. I know that when reading is assigned, it feels like a chore to me, I don't like it and I go through the motions of reading and I don't want that for my students. But I also know that the amount of reading kids do, makes a difference. And as a parent, I know that my kids read at home when their teachers expect them to. I want my students to read at home because I know that it is an important way for them to grow as readers but I don't want to assign it. What's a teacher to do?
I see huge potential in social networking tools. If students see a purpose to their home reading, if we have tools that can extend the conversation beyond the school walls, home reading becomes more authentic. Many teachers I know are using blogs, wikis and social networking sites such as Shelfari to give students a place to talk with others about their home reading. Rather than keep a home reading log for the teacher, the students can converse with others about their reading.
Today, as part of Share-A-Story, some of our favorite literacy experts have written posts on this topic of leisure vs. classwork/homework reading. This is something that many of us, as literacy teachers, struggle with:
At AM Literacy Learning, Ann Marie Corgill interviews her eight-year-old nephew, Jack, about his reading.
Sharon Taberski talks about "Reading for the Fun of It" on her blog, It's All About Comprehension.
At Catching Readers Before They Fall, Pat and Katie share a post called "Puppies or NASA?"
Cathy at Reflect and Refine tackles the issue of take home books and supporting students in choosing Just Right books in a variety of ways in her post, Real Reading.
Deb Frazier at Primary Perspective show us how a tool like VoiceThread can help create lifelong readers in her post "Reading Like Readers -- Naturally."
Katie DiCesare at Creative Literacy explores "Connected Learning Instead of Homework."
Patrick Allen at All-en-A-Day's Work reflects on those mundane tasks he has asked children to do over the years in his post, "Repent... At Reading Homework Taketh Another Look..."
At Educating Alice, Monica has a post about some recent homework that demonstrated a love of reading in "In the Classroom: Book Reviews."
Carol, at Carol's Corner, is thinking hard about Reading Homework in high school.
At Literate Lives, Karen thinks about "What Does Reading Homework Look Like?"
These teacher bloggers have all given us some important things to think about when it comes to home reading. Enjoy!
by Francoize Boucher. I am always looking for ways to help kids get excited about words and word learning so I was thrilled to take a look at this book.
. I had fallen in love with 
by Jeff Wilhelm and Michael Smith. I have learned so much from secondary educators about literary elements and am anxious to read this new one.
by Michelle Harrison looks like a fun fantasy read. It looks engaging--love books about fairies and this one got great reviews. I am not sure how I missed this one when it came out but am glad I found it.
is the first in a new series by by Dan Gutman looks like a fun adventure. I like to read the first books in new series that look like they might become popular so this is one I hope to read soon. It looks like a fun read.
by Lara Berger. This was part of a series of three books at the fair. These look like great early chapter books. They are short and several of our more transitional readers picked them up and looked interested. I think it is definitely a series worth checking out.
are two chapter book biographies written by Sid Fleischman. The Charlie Chaplin biography is the newer one and I thought it might be a fun one to read since we are doing so much with film-making in the library. But these look like great biographies--the kind of bios that our older kids can't get enough of. Great photos throughout as well as an accessible font for kids. I am very excited to have discovered these biographies for middle grade readers. Another biography I picked up was 
by Michael Tunnell. I think kids are fascinated by stories like this one and this is another that looks pretty accessible to middle grade readers. I see so many kids going to the same people year after year after year--not because they are so interested in them when it comes time to read biographies (which is another post) but because they don't really know about that many people. I think a good biography can open up kids' minds to all the ways people have contributed in the world. Kids are fascinated by great stories of people. My issue has been that the quality of the writing doesn't always match the person's story. I look for quality writing about amazing people. 
by Jordan Brown draws readers in as it tells about lots of little things that are all around us. The book takes a "close look" at things like bacteria and bedbugs. There is lots of text in this book and I am a little nervous about reading all of it. There is good info on Bacteria in the Bathroom and "the 5 Second Rule" among other things. The book is divided into chapter so it is definitely one that can be read cover to cover for readers who are interested. Packed with a little too much info for me, I think....
by S. D. Nelson mentioned on a few lists and was happy to see that the book was written by a Native American. I am looking for more reviews on the book. I am trying to add much better literature to this section of our library and thought this one was worth checking out. It was on a few notables lists if I remember correctly.
by Eric Kimmel. I feel like a lot of our mythology is either outdated or newly published to meet the needs of fans of the Lightning Thief series. I was thrilled to see this newer version of stories with great illustrations. Kids couldn't get enough of this book--even those who are not Lightning Thief fans. This is the perfect size book for readers of mythology. Stories with illustrations in a larger picture book format.
by Jim Arnosky looks like a great collection of one page pieces about reptiles. Each two-page spread focuses on one subtopic such as "Turtles" or "Where Do Reptiles Go In Winter". The organization of the book, the accompanying illustrations and the amount of text on each page make it one that I think will be interesting and accessible to kids.
to my fourth graders. I almost told this English Language Learner to put her paper away during read aloud, but, not knowing for sure how much she can even understand as she listens, I let her keep doodling while I read, as a "consolation prize" for all the "incomprehensible English that was washing over her."
