Share your reading life with your students. Let them know who you are as a person and who you are as a reader. By sharing your reading life, your students will see your enthusiasm and love for reading. Students look up to their teachers as role models, tuning in to everything that is said. Use this to your advantage, as you act as a mentor for your students, and work towards moving your students to be readers by choice.
I begin by sharing my book bag, filled with books that influenced me to become a reader. I start with my all-time favourite picture story book, that I first remember as a child, Harry the Dirty Dog. Then I pull out multiple titles from the Enid Blyton and the Nancy Drew series. I share what I am currently reading, which usually includes some fiction for enjoyment, some teacher resource books, and a couple of magazines. Also included are the books I have ‘waiting in the wings’. This shows an avid reader is always prepared with their next book.
Every book you reveal should be shared with a great sense of enthusiasm and excitement, some, more than others, but each book will have had a significant impact on you.
Let your students peek into your life as a reader, by sharing where in your home you love to read, who you can’t wait to talk to about what you are reading, and who gives you your best recommendations.
Students admire their teachers so when we invite our students in to our reading lives we are inviting them to think about their own. Once the idea of a reading life is part of your students’ lives, invite your students
to share their reading lives with each other. This is the beginning of creating a ‘community of readers.’
