Story Time

I just read Never Too Old: Reading Aloud to Independent Readers By Donalyn Miller and here is my reaction:

I sometimes clam up reading aloud to my students. Part of it is I know I can't create the best voices for my characters but also I realize I'm being compared to our librarian, a true thespian who ranks up there with Meryl Streep. There's no way I can compete with that. I don't want my students to laugh at me for trying. Right now, I'm reading Elijah of Buxton and it's laced thick with the dialect of an 11 year old boy growing up in an escaped slaves settlement in Cananda. The are a lot of double-negatives, the word "ate" becomes "et," and "before" becomes "afore" to name a few. This is hard for an English major to wrap her tongue around! But I do my best, and I let my students draw and color while I'm reading, to hopefully distract them a bit from my somewhat lacking Elijah impression. Usually when my daily schedule gets tight, the first thing to go is story time. My children bemoan this decision and I tell them, "I'm sorry, but we've got to do X and Y."

I came upon this article this evening and it has made me to see story time in a different light. I am going to try hard to keep story time in my plans this week. I will admit, it's going to be hard. I've got to fit an entire CT lesson and SAT prep in with my regular plans, as well as get the classroom prepared for Grandparents Day. Check in with me next week and I'll share my success... or failure.

I'm also getting a tickle out of this quote: "Be mindful of what Jim Trelease (author of The Read Aloud Handbook) calls the 3 B’s: the breakfast table, the bathroom, and the bed---make sure kids always have something to read at these three locations." From Ending Readicide, again by Miller.

I think I've found myself a new blog to follow.