Reading & Writing Lives

I love teaching my students how to become successful readers and writers. I enjoy watching them foster a love of reading and finding books that hook them. It is my passion and ultimately why I chose my graduate school path in reading instruction.

I grew up as an early reader and enjoyed books. When I got to middle and high school though, this all seemed to change for me. I was given a list each year of classic novels to read, read them, took a test, and repeat. Although I love knowing that I've read so many famous classics and can check them off my "list", I don't feel like that enhanced my reading life. Now as an adult, I find I need to schedule time to read for pleasure. Up until recently, my reading life consisted of browsing daily news articles and reading children's books with my 2nd graders. By the time the end of the day came, I had no energy left for books for pleasure.

It is evident that I need to practice what I preach. I need to have a scheduled time for reading and writing in my day - beyond children's books. Randy Bomer, author of Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms, explains that you need to establish habits and conditions for forming a reading and writing life. Everything from your schedule, to the place, and even the light should play into your conditions for reading and writing.

Bomer states that "Educated people should know how to pursue their own intellectual projects. Educated people should have agendas that take them to texts. Educated people should have habits that allow them to have reading and writing lives." (Bomer 2011) If I want to create educated, lifelong readers and writers, I have to build these habits early and also build them within my own life.