The Adventure Led Me Here

At the beginning of the school year, I try to set a few areas that I want to focus on throughout the year. Some of the goals never quite come to fruition (let’s be honest, my desk is still a hot mess, despite my lofty ambition to organize it weekly) while others are slightly more successful. One of my goals was to create a culture and love of reading in my classroom. I had the opportunity to attend the Reading Summit hosted by Scholastic last summer and hear Donalyn Miller speak (she’s the QUEEN of the reading world), and I was left to reflect on my own practice. If I teach phonics and the elements of a story but the kids despise reading, what have I really taught? Reading should be transformative. Empathy, perspective, compassion, imagination, and creativity are all nestled between the pages of a book. If we never allow kids to experience this, then we’re truly doing them a dangerous disservice. This is not to diminish or ignore the critical role of phonics, phonemic awareness, st