This blog post is courtesy of April Willard, principal at Midway Elementary. April is leading a year-long book study using Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. Miller is a world-renowned educator, author, speaker and current Reading Ambassador for Scholastic. Her success in getting students excited about reading has not only yielded high growth in test scores, but has earned attention from reading experts and children's authors from around the world. July 1, 2015, I started a new chapter in my career, Principal at Midway Elementary. I knew the first item on my long “to do” list was to meet with each individual staff member, build positive relationships and find out from staff the strengths and needs of the school. When I meet with the Media Coordinator, Joanie Williams, she began to talk about what she thought were the needs of the school. We discussed the fact that reading scores were not quite where they needed to be. She talked about a book by Donalyn Miller entitled “Reading in the Wild.” It was obvious she was passionate about the book. I too am passionate about reading and we instantly connected with our strong beliefs about students and their reading habits. We want to GROW WILD READERS here at Midway. Joanie mentioned she wanted to do a staff book study. I started getting very excited because I am very familiar with Donalyn Miller (maybe even boarder line stalker – following her every move on Twitter and Facebook). I had read “The Book Whisperer” by Donalyn but had not read “Reading in the Wild.” Once I got my hands on the book I knew that the staff book study was exactly the direction we needed to go. Joanie along with Assistant Principal Dr. Kelsey Musselman spent time this summer developing a plan for our book study. We knew it needed to be structured and practical. We wanted to make sure that the ideas learned as we were reading this book together we implemented school-wide. We needed all staff to get just as excited about this book as the three of us. So let the planning begin!!! We planned a staff book study kick-off in October, with the Wild Readers theme we were going for – to include WILD cupcakes and other themed food, WILD theme music from the Lion King, and of course FREE BOOKS for all staff!! Laying the foundation of the why and the how, all staff members left the meeting feeling energized and ready to begin this journey together of GROWING WILD READERS. Our next challenge was to get the students excited about being WILD READERS. We held a school-wide assembly. We explained to the students that we were going to focus this year on building their love for reading. We discussed why it was important and how the amount of vocabulary learned just by reading an extra 30 minutes a day or 60 minutes a day increases drastically. We kicked off our year-long focus with WILD AND CRAZY HAIR DAY!! We explained how students can “steal time” to read each day – even 5-10 minutes. We wanted to “catch” our students stealing time to read. After the assembly, we were able to catch students reading at all times of the school day. Each month we read a chapter in Donalyn’s book, meet as a staff to discuss key points or quotes and implement strategies school-wide from what we have learned. By making the WILD READER focus fun and exciting for all students and staff, I’m confident that by the end of the year we will have cultivated WILD READERS AT MIDWAY ELEMENTARY!!
3 Comments
Dr Lory Morrow
1/13/2016 09:21:29 am
This is very exciting!! I love seeing this blog and look forward to future posts.
Reply
Lorie
1/13/2016 09:51:16 am
I love Donalyn Miller, and the way you've implemented the program in your school sounds great!
Reply
Lydia Hedrick
1/13/2016 06:30:34 pm
Thank you for sharing April! I plan on stealing some of your ideas.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
About UsWelcome to the official blog just for DCS library media programs. Enjoy new posts from one of our many contributors and follow along to see the amazing things happening in Davidson County school libraries. Archives
April 2019
CategoriesArchives
April 2019
|