If you are reading this then your about to read my latest blog post 📖👓

Reading happens in our everyday lives, it’s hard to think of a day where we don’t go without reading. Growing up I enjoyed reading books in my spare time outside of school during the summer months. Some of my favourite reads included Nancy Drew collection, The Twilight series and novels by the murder/mystery artist Joan Lowery Nixon. I choose to read novels that were interesting to me which then led me to envision the story in my imagination. I think it is important to have our students tap into their imaginations and creative minds when we ask them to read. We need to give reading a purpose and allow students to appreciate reading more, and not just read because we ask them too.

“…imaginative powers will go a long way towards convincing them that reading can be a rich source of pleasure and knowledge”

-Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8

This is a key point that I have highlighted from the curriculum. As educators we need to give choice and options to our students so that they can feel empowered making decisions with their reading materials, getting in touch with their imaginations and allowing them to make connections with their reading material to themselves and real world experiences. 

Reading is not only important in language arts but can apply to every subject and daily activities. We as educators need to help students understand the significance of reading and how it encompasses comprehension strategies outlined in the curriculum such as predicting, visualizing, questioning and drawing interference, identifying main ideas and summarizing (Ontario Curriculum, pg. 10).  Reading is a topic of learning that will apply cross curricular to other subjects but also will help strengthen the writing, oral communication and media literacy strands of language arts as well. An activity I really enjoyed from class was the reading-writing connection activity, as a group we created a story with the simple direction of choosing an opening prompt. Activities such as this one can help a student begin organizing their thoughts and give students ideas where to start. However students need to understand writing prompts and be able to visualize and predict a story.

As important as it is to get students reading material that interests them I think it is also important as an educator to get my students to read different material to build their vocabulary, and expand their comprehension on different topics that both fictional books and non-fiction books can teach young learners. Gathering material to add into my toolbox of resources is important as a future educator. Gathering a variety of reading prompts, ideas to start read-along in my classroom and online sources (i.e., Storybird) can help enrich the learning and interest of reading in my classroom.

As an educator it is important to know your students and where their prior knowledge lies with regards to reading.

“Reading is a complex process that involves the application of many strategies before, during and after reading. –Students might prepare by identifying the purpose of the reading activity and by activation their prior knowledge about the topic of the text.”

-OntarioCurriculum Grades 1-8

It is important to build on our students and their knowledge and help to create a strong and sound foundation that incorporates the enjoyment of reading for our young learners. As en educator I will work towards doing just this in my classroom and foster the interest in my students so they can continue to become good readers and appreciate and understand what they read.  

So let's bring the enjoyment back into reading, hope you enjoyed!  


via GIPHY