Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys

Growing up in a family of all girls, boys were always a mystery to me. As a teacher, I have had to make a conscious effort to get to know my boys as readers and to build up my classroom library to make sure that I have balance so that there are multiple books that will catch the attention of my varied readers. Through book clubs, conferring during independent reading, and other avenues such as reading response letters, it has been a pleasure to get to know my students as readers and to watch thir interests emerge and grow. Last summer I specifically focused on boys and books for my YA Lit class.

I was thrilled to be able to read a copy of Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys: How to Engage Boys in Reading in Ways That Will Change Their Lives since it focuses on an area of strong interest. Before I started reading the book I looked at Pam Allyn's website and was inspired by the work she has done world wide to advocate for boy readers, LitWorld and LitLife.

Allyn's expertise developed throughout the years of working with boy readers is apparent in the book. She begins by laying a foundation for why it is essential for people to focus on developing a lifelong love of reading for boys, followed by a series of question and answers, which were well thought out, relevant, and closely aligned with my personal teaching philosophy.

The bulk of the book is recommendations for books that will hook boys categorized in a variety of ways, such as: expeditions, humor, mechanics and technology, nature and the animal world, and sports. Each section is further sub-categorized into books for emerging, developing, and maturing readers, categories that Allyn explains along with the need for teachers to consider them in flexible ways. Each book has a brief explanation, while some books have a list of other similar books that students will most likely enjoy which made me think back to Teri Lesesne's Reading Ladders. Select books also have discussion points to get conversations started, as Allyn explains the important role of dialogue in fostering literate lives. After the section of books, Allyn also includes a list of magazines and web sites with notes about their assets.

Throughout Allyn sets the tone that boys need to feel safe and valued as readers, highlighting the importance of working toward helping boys discover who they are as readers. She also mentioned the link to reading impacting students as individuals by noticing the human experience in reading, which I thought Smith and Wilhelm addressed well in their Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements.

Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys is an excellent resource with a wealth of information for parents, educators, and community members who would like to make a difference in the literate lives of boys.

*Electronic review copy provided

Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements

Since a lot of my educational reading this year has been for my doctoral classes, I have not been able to read (and consequently post) about professional books for pleasure. Right now I am at various stages with about four other books, but Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements: How to Teach What Really Matters About Character, Setting, Point of View, and Theme by Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm was the first book that I have read through completely lately.

I read most of Reading Don't Fix No Chevys this summer and I have heard a lot about one of the authors because he is a professor at the university where I am getting my Ed.D., so I was familiar with the authors and interested to see their latest book. When I saw them talking about transferring learning on the Amazon preview, I could not resist purchasing it right away. I could tell that their philosophy aligned with the well-known workshop, "Read like writers and write like readers." 

For my cognition class this semester, I had been thinking of doing my research project on whether or not writing to learn journals seem to have an impact on helping students facilitate what they notice as readers into their own writing vs. solely discussing what they notice. When I got the book, I realized that there were many mentions of cognition and it actually pointed me toward investigating situated cognition further. I always love it when a book aligns even more closely with a current focal area than I had anticipated. 

Aside from the cognition and transfer aspects, in general I just loved the book. Toward the end of last year I was realizing that students were getting comprehension strategies that I had focused on a lot over the last couple of years but that they were not prompting students to deeply analyze texts, so I began considering how to scaffold students' abilities to move toward analysis. This book has many ideas on how to work toward that goal. 

Most of all, one of my favorite aspects was the frequent mentions of the value of studying literature as a means to help students develop a stronger understanding of themselves and their worlds which leads to a positive impact on their overall long-term success. A key component of achieving this is through inquiry units. I started out the year intending to have inquiry focal questions all year long but it has not happened. The book was a good reminder to layer that essential component in for the remainder of the second half of the year. 

The book provided me with plenty to consider with cognition, analysis, and inquiry, so I look forward to trying out some of their ideas and then revisiting the book again later in order to remind myself of other aspects that I will not be able to immediately implement. 

Scholastic Book Clubs

I just took advantage of Scholastic's extra bonus point offers when placing my students' orders. I know that the first order of the year always seems to have the best promotions for additional bonus points, so I ordered more books to make it to the $200 mark for the TAB and Arrow orders to get the maximum additional points. I always love buying more books for my classroom library, and I also got some for my girls. I can use some others for holiday gifts as well.

Aside from being able to get more classroom library books from time to time throughout the year, the other main reason why I wanted to stock up on bonus points was because each year we have a school wide Día de los niños celebration in April, and we give each student a book as a gift. Since I am the language arts teachers for 6th-8th grade I coordinate all of our students' books. This year I have a little under 80 students, and I will get different books throughout the year to try to match books with appropriate reading and interest levels to each student. I am excited to see a big bonus points balance to start out the year in order to buy books from time to time.

When I went to place my order I was also excited to see the updates to their ordering site. It was much easier to place my orders, now that they allow to do as many different clubs on the same order. Last year it had a limit - I think around four or five. The process for making sure to take advantage of all special promotions was also a lot easier, clearly outlined at checkout.

Bring on the books!

Revisiting The Reading Zone

For my last post (for now) on revisiting The Reading Zone, I wanted to make a list of ideas that I will incorporate from the book:

*Have a books we love section in our classroom library (33).
*Set aside pages in the front of students' reader's notebook for a Someday page with book titles that they would like to read eventually (68).
*I loved the quote from one of her students Forrest who said, "With girl characters, I am watching the 'movie,' but with boy characters, I am the star" (22). I am going to share this concept with my students while discussing the pleasures of being in the zone.
*Work toward her goal of having at least 20 books per student in my classroom library and continually look for ways to make my library grow. Even if I have just one particular student in mind when I see it - it's worth it (31).
*Talk to students about three levels of books: Holidays, Just Rights, and Challenges (40).
*I will put a copy of her "Some Questions I Ask as I Roam Among Readers" in my binder that I will carry around while conferring as a reminder to revisit it frequently and to reflect on how I confer with students (93).
*I am going to discuss with my teaching partner the idea of sending notification to parents each time there is a missing assignment and scheduling a conference once a student has three (28).

Revisiting The Reading Zone

While reading The Reading Zone, so much of Atwell's ideas made perfect sense. One area that stumped me however, was her comments against some of the strategies and literacy practices including metacognitive strategies from educators and resources I had come to trust, such as Cris Tovani, The Mosaic of Thought, Kylene Beers, and Harvey Daniels (pp. 17). (Note: Atwell did not say anything against these educators' ideas or resources specifically, her comments just reminded me of concepts they had advocated that made sense to me.)

As I continued to read the book I tried to sift through different references to the subject to determine exactly where Atwell draws the line. When referencing lessons incorporated in her reading workshop she mentioned, "Each involves kids in a discussion of good books and good things that smart readers know" (42). I thought about how this idea matched up with why the other educators advocated strategies in order to help make a successful reading process more transparent for those who were not avid readers yet.

Later, she further clarified for me by stating, "[...] to make distinctions between study skills that do help readers gain concepts in science and history, and metacognitive strategies that may interrupt children's processing of stories and distract them from the pleasures of the reading zone" (51). In the margin I wrote about how I could relate to this. Right before I came to this section for the first time I had just read Becoming Naomi León and kept notes about different places where I could model comprehension strategies that I had. I thought that if I recorded them the first time reading through it would be more authentic. However, I was distracted from the process and sometimes wanted to just read the book.

Atwell then discussed how she integrated cognitive strategies into her classroom only to regret it. "The sticky notes intruded in the zone, disrupted the flow of a great story, ate up precious hours that could have been devoted to living inside another great story, wasted their time as readers" (54). Furthermore, she explained, "[...] directing story readers to activate comprehension strategies may hurt their comprehension" (56). Another comment against the strategies was, "The problem is that when we tell kids they have to seek connections as readers, we're teaching them to stop engaging in stories and start looking for distractions. And no one can be engaged and distracted at the same time" (59).

Later in the book Atwell makes a distinction between comprehension strategies in the reading workshop and in content areas such as science and social studies where she thinks teachers are responsible for making sure the content is accessible to their students, which may include teaching strategies (61).

Atwell gave me so much to consider, especially in reference to the many resources I had connected with that seemed to go against what she was saying. I ended up making a note to myself in the margin, "I appreciate this as I am developing my sense of quality reading instruction. A lot to ponder - can see her point." My struggle was I that while I got her perspective (it was easy to get why it is not ideal to bump students out of the zone), I could still get where the other resources were coming from and the validity behind them.

My Latest Conclusions
When skimming through this last time I decided that I still agree with the multitude of resources, even though they seemingly contradict each other. As much as possible I will stay out of my students' way this year to make sure that I am not unnecessarily bumping them out of the reading zone, especially when they are already established readers. However, with students that are not established readers I will gather as much data as possible to try to understand what their roadblocks are to becoming life-long readers and I will utilize a portion of the reading workshop to meet with small groups. Each time I will try to be very intentional and aware of the two sides of the debate to make sure that I am making the best decision for my students and the long-term effects my decisions will have on their reading. With avid readers I will still pull them into small group meetings (albeit less frequently) to include them in book clubs or to engage them in reading a book that challenges them but provide support to do so.

I have also found it helpful to have students complete general responses to reading after they complete assigned reading, rather than encouraging them to stop as they find examples. This way they think about what stuck with them. They have heard about the specific strategies, but I often allow a free response rather than stating they have to use a specific strategy. However, sometimes if I am working with a group of students or a student on an individual strategy that seems like it will help them have a breakthrough to be a more successful reader, I may prompt for a response directly linked to instruction.

I wonder what I will think on the topic when I revisit The Reading Zone again in the future, which I am sure to do.

Revisiting The Reading Zone

One of the books I revisit and skim again frequently is Nancie Atwell's The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers. I decided to do a few posts with my reflections on the book. One of the topics that I ponder every time I look at the book (as well as in between times) is whether or not to use a reading log. I love the lure of her thoughts on just checking the page where students are during independent reading time and then using whether or not they have been progressing as an indicator of if they are doing their homework reading or not. I have been so close to switching over, and thought it over again this summer.

I take the concept of making sure that the components of my literacy block reflect what real readers and writers do. I know keeping a reading log would drive me crazy. I enjoy blogging about books I read, but I would not like having to record the pages and time I read each time I do. I even ditched the record keeping that I started filling out with my girls for the library's summer reading program. I realized that I just wanted to sit with my girls and enjoy the experience of getting into the reading zone. They are filled with excitement each time we go to the library and pick out a stack of books that we read together and they look through on their own multiple times before switching for a new batch of books. Watching the clock was taking away from the experience for me, and I also did not want to add in the extrinsic motivation with the rewards the library provided if my girls are already intrinsically motivated. By giving up the reading log for the reading program, I was not forfeiting anything important in the long-run for my girls and still focusing on an environment that will create life-long readers.

I am sure many of my ravenous readers feel the same way. One of my most voracious readers sometimes forgot to hand in her reading log, but there was no doubt in my mind that she had read well over the minimum requirement. For readers like her who are already well established, I would like to get rid of the log. Another student would usually read on the bus ride home but always forget to record what she read once she got home.Then I also think of students who are not yet avid readers and how the reading log is one more tool to keep track of their reading behaviors.

My biggest road block to giving up reading logs is that students do not necessarily always read the same book in school as they do outside of school. Just as I often read one book during independent reading time and other books at home, so do my students. In addition, our dual immersion setting means that sometimes students are reading a book from each language at a time. Other students read to where they need to be for their book club, when applicable, and then continue reading in their other self-selected book. My next thought was that again, students juggling multiple books may once again be avid readers who I would not need to worry about as much, but there are some students who are not necessarily established readers who read books with their families for their at home reading requirement and a different book while at school. Checking their progress with their in-class book may or may not reflect whether or not they did their home reading.

I would love to hear your thoughts on reading logs and whether or not you have found it realistic to skip the record keeping piece while still maintaining the follow-through on the students' side.