God Bless Reading Teachers, Every One!

I've rewritten Tiny Tim's famous line for the title of this post because people who teach others to read give a priceless gift. We've been quite blessed in this family that my children have become strong, enthusiastic readers thanks to some awesome teachers. They are also much more sophisticated (?), reflective readers than I ever was at their age. I think that is in large part due to the way reading is taught in our school district. My kids have greatly benefited from mini lessons, reading workshops, and reading conferences with their teachers. While reading Raymond and Graham Rule the School the other night, my son said, "I can make a text to text connection between the character of Mrs. Gibson in this book and Spud Murphy in The Legend of Spud Murphy." Their reading lessons at school have given them the vocabulary to make text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. While they would still love when Spud Murphy "accidentally" gives Marty an I LOVE BARBIE hand stamp and when Graham shaves off his eyebrow, their reading is more meaningful when they make connections about these incidents. They are active readers, and I am so grateful for it. As I wrote yesterday, Raymond and Graham inspired my daughter to read a version of A Christmas Carol (nicely retold by Pamela Kennedy and illustrated by Carol Heyer). Now, no two books could be more different, but Hayden has learned from her teachers that reading one can enrich her appreciation of the other, and that inspired today's blog post. My son Aaron suggested that I attempt to make a plum pudding so they can eat it and make a text to self connection to both books, but they don't need that meaningful of a reading experience.