I'm really enjoying the book I choose to do this book study on.  Chapter 2 was a great chapter all about changing are assumptions about are students as readers.  Personally, I don't know how effective any teacher can be without the assumption that each of their students can learn and has their own talents.  But I do have a few questions about this chapter.  

Whether we label someone as a reluctant reader or as a dormant one isn't going to make much of a difference.  Sooner or later the new terms will take on the same negative connotations unless we also change the meaning applied to those terms.  I'm sure when the term reluctant reader first came out it wasn't meant to have a negative connotation at all. 

Sorry about the rant,  I'd love to hear what ya'all think about changing the names of types of reading to more positive terms.  

Although, I don't agree with changing terms,  I do completely agree with the above statement.  A teachers perception of his/her students is so important to help them develop their own perceptions of themselves as readers.  

I hope your all having a great summer.  I'm currently working on a great new back to school product that I'm very excited about.  

Yeah!  Its now officially summer.  I'm going to try and spend some of this summer, as I know many of you other teachers are right now, reading some professional development books.  The book I've chosen to read first, was Recommended from the Organized Classroom Blog Facebook feed.  And if any of you haven't liked the Organized Classroom Blog Facebook Page you absolutely should its a great teaching community to be a part of.  

The first chapter is basically about the authors experience with learning to read and her evolution of her teaching practices.  While reading the chapter I realized that I've never really shared with my readers my experience with learning to read.

First of all, you should realize, that I'm not the type of person who remembers the name of each and every teacher they've ever had.  I have some childhood memories of learning to read but their not exactly extensive. 

As a young child, I didn't like to read.  I viewed reading as school work, I thought school was boring and work as hard.  So I hated to read.  Now I really liked it when others read to me, either my parents or teachers, but reading by myself wasn't something I would choose to do.  

During this time in my life, I do have one positive memory of learning to read and it happened because I didn't really consider it reading.  One thing that you might not know about me is that I love to sing.  Now I don't have an American Idol quality of talent.  Singing is something I love to do and I don't completely suck at it.  That was true now and it was true of me as a child.  This love of singing is what helped me to learn how to read "big words."    

On sheet music multisyllable words are broken up with dashes so you can sing each syllable with its note.  I have fond memories of singing in church with my dad pointing to each word as we sung.  This experience helped me have the capability and confidence of reading larger words.

So how did I change my attitude of hating to read to loving books?  The change came when I discovered book series like Sweet Valley Twins and The Babysitters Club.  I couldn't read enough of them and eventually (it took awhile) I was able to move from these to some great novels.  

I've also finished within the last month two History books,  The Notorious Benedict Arnold and Charlie Wilson's War, which was about the CIA's involvement in the Russian Afghanistan conflict.  

I loved Donalyn Miller's closing thought for Chapter 1,  and I'd like to give a shout out for all of the teachers out there who are continually trying to reach their teaching paradise by inspiring a love of books in their classrooms.  

Here's a brand new reading chart to help you kids get reading over the summer.   You can have your kids mark off a number for each chapter they read or for younger kids for each book.  

You can find more reading charts on my reading chart page.  

I had so much fun creating the last two reading charts that I decided to create a few more.  So here is a giraffe and elephant reading chart for you to download.  

I also created a new page to put all of the reading charts in the same place so if you missed last weeks you'll be able to find them here on my Reading Charts page.

If your wondering why I put the numbers as 26 on one and 27 on the other one, that's just how many circles and spots I was able to fit on the animals.  

Well, its been a long year but today's the last day of school in my school district.  I'm looking forward to a nice summer.  So it's probably too late for you to use these in your classroom this year,  but for all of the parents out their who want to keep their kids busy reading this summer I've created two new reading charts.  You can have them color in a square for each book or each chapter they read, and then have a decided on award for them when they finish.  

And here is something that I created last year.  It's a summer reading wish list.  It's a great way to have your kids plan out what they want to read over the summer.

So my make 10 hidden picture worksheets are finally done.  There are hidden pictures in all.  I think that this will be great for next year when I'm trying to get all of my students to memorized all of the addition facts related to 10.  

The way these worksheets work is that there are addition problems in each square.  All of the addition facts have a sum of 10 but they use different facts to make 10.  So some of the squares have 9 + 1 while others have 8 + 2, and so forth.  Each different fact uses a different color, so all of the 9 + 1's are colored blue while all of the 8 + 2's are colored green.  

These puzzles are free and will remain free so enjoy.  : )

Also in other news you can now purchase items from my store directly on Facebook.  Here's a link to the Facebook store so go check it out.  

I've been working on a set of make 10 hidden picture worksheets.  In these worksheets all of the addition problems sums are 10.  Kids find out what the hidden picture is by using different colors determined by which way 10 was made.  So 6+4 is a different color than 7+3.  

You can download a free worksheet below.  

Hope everyone is having a great end of year.