#FlyHighFriday

My colleague and friend, Justin Birckbichler (@Mr_B_Teacher on Twitter), is encouraging teachers on Twitter to tweet their #FlyHighFriday moments of the week to celebrate the positives in their schools and classrooms.  It was during a read aloud the other day that I discovered my #FlyHighFriday moments.  From that point, I started noticing many of the same instances throughout my week.

As I began reading Rain Reign to my students, I looked up to see two girls scrunched together in their desks whispering.  I paused in the  middle of the sentence I was reading and took a breath to say something to them when I had a realization. I saw that they were not just whispering the dramatic happenings of typical sixth graders, but they were actually discussing a book. They weren't talking about the book that we were reading together; their conversations were spilling over from their independent reading time. One of the girls was holding a book and showing the other one an exciting part that she had reached in her daily reading. These two students are self-professed non-readers. They don't like reading, and they are not afraid to let me know that - sometimes on a daily basis. To see them smiling and sharing a book almost made my week.

Then, during a transition from one activity to the next, I looked up to see another student with her nose buried in a book.  She glanced up and caught me looking at her, to which she responded, "I'm sorry, I just really like this book.  I can't stop reading it."  This is the same student who told me on the first day of school that she does not like to read and spent the first two weeks of school avoiding independent reading at all costs.  Since that day, she has not only finished the book that she was so engrossed in, but has also recommended it to several of her classmates and has found other similar books that she cannot seem to put down.

After these two incidents in one class, I realized that I needed to pay closer attention to how my students are growing.  I started the year with quite a challenge before me.  For the first time, I had students that were just flat-out refusing to read.  They told me that they did not enjoy it, and most of them seemed pretty stubborn when I tried to convince them that I was going to change their minds.  I am slowly starting to see progress, and nothing could please me more.

Just yesterday I looked up during independent reading time to see one of my most stubborn students completely absorbed in his book.  After switching books every other day for the past five weeks and not making much progress in any of them, I gave him A Child Called It at the beginning of the week. Of course, I explained that it was a book that I only let my most mature readers read. I explained the first two chapters, and then sent him off with it.  I told him to trust me.  I stopped by his desk yesterday to ask how it was going, and he said, with a huge grin, "It's actually really good."  I even made him repeat that statement.  He kept smiling and quietly went back to reading.

Students are starting to recommend books to each other.  They stop me in the hallways to tell me how far they got in their book at home or to tell me what book they just started.  Two students even checked out the same book this morning so they could sit together and read and have something to discuss.

Their excitement is starting to build, and I can see reading becoming a habit right in front of me.  To experience this transformation is what propels me out of bed each morning to share my day with impressionable tweens that have their whole lives ahead of them - as readers.  For me, nothing could make me fly higher on a Friday than that.