Growing as a Community of Learners

  Lincoln teachers are halfway through our book club discussions on Donalyn Miller's Reading in the Wild.  It's fun to see our teachers post on social media as they read their chapter each week in order to be ready for the Wednesday discussions.  So far we've had some thoughtful conversations  regarding:

• Book Logs- Are the book logs we're currently using helping our students grown into kids who love to read?  Several grade levels changed their logs to make them more meaningful for kids This was not a discussion we were ready to have at the beginning of the year.
• Reading Levels- There is a time and place for using book levels, and we're still trying to decide how to balance the use of levels.  We all agree that kids are NOT LEVELS. They are readers who are learning and growing as they experience different books. You can find a link to another post from about book levels here.
• Sharing Book Recommendations- This past week we talked a lot about how we can share book titles with our students. We discussed having the teacher on morning assembly duty give a quick book commercial.  We also talked about different ways we can display our book titles with each other and with the kids. I'll post some pictures after we start implementing our ideas.
• Classroom Libraries- We've also had some of our current practices validated. Reading in the Wild reminded us that we are fortunate to have an administrator that provides funds for classrooms to have well stocked classroom libraries. Every classroom in our school has bookshelf after bookshelf filled with books. 

  All in all, it's encouraging to see educators having honest and courageous conversations around the practices we are currently using.  Are they working for us and the kids?  What kind of changes are we needing to make?  We have two more weeks of book club left, and I can't wait.  We are definitely growing as a community of learners.