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just 1 book: author guest post–dawn little (and giveaway!)

home / reading / books / just 1 book: author guest post–dawn little (and giveaway!)
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This ‘just 1 book‘ guest post is long overdue, and I’m so looking forward to sharing.  Dawn Little is a fellow Marylander, a teacher and literacy expert, an author and blogger.  Our paths have crossed many times online, and although we’re only a stone’s throw from each other here in the suburbs of DC, we have yet to catch up and chat in real life.

I’m hoping that we can actually connect sometime before the school year’s end, because I’d love to pick the brain of such an incredibly talented and gifted teacher.

Here, Dawn shares her post about a book that inspired her (and me, too!), and she is giving away one copy of her own book, Teaching Comprehension with Nonfiction Read Alouds. Awesome!!

About the author: Dawn Little is the author of Teaching Comprehension with Nonfiction Read Alouds: 12 Lessons for Using Newspapers, Magazines, and Other Nonfiction Texts to Build Key Comprehension Skills.  She blogs at Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books where she provides educators with picture book lessons based on comprehension strategies and the Six Traits of Writing.  In addition, she blogs at Literacy Toolbox where she provides educators and parents with tips and tools to enhance the literacy lives of children.  She is the founder and President of Links to Literacy, a company dedicated to providing interactive literacy experiences for children and families.  Find out more at www.linkstoliteracy.com

  • just 1 book: author guest post by Dawn Little

All it took, was just one book. . . to help me become the teacher I wanted to be, by Dawn Little

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher.  As a child, I’d transform my room into a classroom.  I’d “dress” like a teacher on Career Day.  I babysat regularly and created “lessons” for my charges.

Teaching has always been a part of me, part of my identity. It was a no-brainer that I would major in education in college.  I loved every minute of preparing to become a teacher.  When I was finally able to student teach, I honed my teaching philosophy and planned meticulous lessons based on the county curriculum.  Then it was my turn.  I was hired!  I was excited to have my own classroom.  I was ready.  I became a first year teacher of fourth graders.  I was comfortable in the classroom, comfortable teaching my first class of students, but what kind of teacher was I going to be?  How would the teaching philosophy I had worked so hard on transfer into practice?

I really wasn’t sure.  I was comfortable in the classroom, but I wasn’t sure how to combine the process of teaching the curriculum with my own philosophy of teaching. I knew I wanted to incorporate reading – read alouds and independent reading, specifically – into the curriculum, but I wasn’t sure how.

When I began teaching, our district had a language arts curriculum that consisted of nine-week planners.  I remember being so excited as a student teacher to attend the district-planned professional development that introduced the nine-week planners.  Total teacher nerd, I know!  The planners provided teachers with a few objectives for teaching language arts during the nine-week marking period.  We taught with core novels for which we provided comprehension questions.  While I was pleased that I was able to teach with actual books and not basals like I grew up with, I still felt something was missing.  There had to be more to teaching reading then handing out novels, asking students to read them, discussing the novels with them, and then providing them with questions to assess their comprehension. Not only were my students bored, but I was bored, too!  There had to be a better way!

Enter my colleague who introduced me to Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis. That was the first time that I realized that professional development didn’t have to just consist of what the district provided.  I could read books that could and would transform my teaching.  Thankfully that happened early in my career.  I have since read many fantastic books that have transformed my teaching in a number of ways.  But, I digress.

Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement provided me with a new framework to teach language arts, and reading in particular.  Based on research that good readers use specific strategies when they read, Harvey and Goudvis provided a rationale and lesson ideas in their first edition (it’s now in its second edition) for comprehension strategies including activating background knowledge, making connections, asking questions, making inferences, and synthesizing. These strategies are just a sampling of what all readers use to help them comprehend text.  It was a revelation.  Reading is thinking!

Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement transformed the way I taught. I no longer felt a need to provide novels for students to read and questions for them to answer.  I still taught the curriculum, and we still read the novels, but I taught reading in a workshop approach.  I began modeling for students strategies that good readers use.  I would read aloud a picture book and explicitly state what I was thinking as I read (noting the specific comprehension strategies I was using).  Students were then given opportunities to practice using the same strategy in guided reading groups and then independently.  Students began to enjoy reading again.  And they were learning how to think when they read (something ALL readers do!).

I have been out of the classroom for a while now.  Education is cyclical and there are probably new recommendations for ways to teach reading.  However, I firmly believe that what Harvey and Goudvis spent so long researching holds true: reading is thinking, and we must teach our children how to think as they read. I still do this today.  I don’t have a classroom of my own anymore, but I do have two children of my own that I model reading strategies for as I read aloud to them every night. I thank Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement for that.

I couldn’t agree more, Dawn!! Love, love, love your post.

GIVEAWAY: One copy of Dawn Little’s book, Teaching Comprehension with Nonfiction Read Alouds

Do you want to win a copy of Teaching Comprehension with Nonfiction Read Alouds written by Dawn Little?

  • Leave a comment here (along with your email address) simply sharing how you plan to use this text–for homeschooling, in your classroom, for tutoring, for your children’s enrichment, to donate to your child’s teacher, etc.
  • For extra entries,  you can share this post with a friend (just tell me who you shared it with!) OR Tweet this: Win ‘Teaching Reading Comp w Nonfiction Read Alouds’ by @linkstoliteracy on @teachmama http://teachmama.com/?p=1246 #ece #literacy

This contest ends on Sunday, February 6, 2011 at midnight ET.

Do you want to share a book that moved you? Let me know!

The just 1 book feature gives everyone a chance to share their love of literature and the power of books. Guest writers are invited to share a book that moved him or her:

‘all it took was just 1 book’. . . to get you thinking, get you moving, get you arts-and-crafting, get you talking, get you writing, get you counting, get you traveling, get you thinking, get you cookin‘, dancin’ or dreamin‘.

And if you’re interested in guest posting for the just 1 book series, please let me know! Anyone and everyone is welcome; just drop me an email at [email protected]

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About amy mascott

teacher, mother, dreamer. lover of literacy, fun learning, good food, and three crazy-cool kids. finder of four-leaf clovers | dc metro · http://about.me/amymascott
tweet with me: @teachmama

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Pat

    January 31, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    I know Dawn and agree – she’s one of the best!

    Reply
  2. A. Gordon

    January 31, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    I’d like to add this book to my school library (I’m librarian at a preK-3 library in western New York state.) My students love, love, love nonfiction–many young kids do–so it makes sense to look at reading strategies that take advantage of this interest.

    Reply
  3. Teresa Garrett

    January 31, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    I would love love love to win! First I would read it for my own information. Second as an elementary school librarian I would booktalk it at a faculty meeting and then donate it to the school library so all teachers could use it with their students.

    Reply
  4. Diana Pettis

    January 31, 2011 at 8:39 pm

    I love the information shared in this blog.

    Reply
  5. Shelley

    January 31, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    I would love to use this book in my 2nd grade classroom!

    Reply
  6. Katie

    January 31, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    I would use this in my classroom! I teach K-2 special education.

    Reply
  7. Tracy

    January 31, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    I am coming back to the classroom after 8 years of being a stay-at-home parent and I have been hearing so much about the reading workshop approach. I’d love the opportunity to learn more. Thank you for hosting this giveaway.

    Reply
  8. The Activity Mom

    January 31, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    awesome!
    I’d read the book just for the knowledge and inspiration. Afterwards, I’d pass it on to another teacher friend.
    [email protected]

    Reply
  9. Heather K

    February 1, 2011 at 6:12 am

    I would love to get my hands on this book. I may keep it to use with my kids or pass it along to one of their fabulous teachers. Thanks!

    Reply
  10. Cheryl

    February 1, 2011 at 6:20 am

    I’d use this book at home to help with teaching my children.

    Reply
  11. Gabe

    February 1, 2011 at 8:42 am

    We are a homeschool family, using no one set method, but with a strong focus on Charlotte Mason. Mason was a 19th century educator who belived in teaching with living books, rather than dry text books. She also taught that a student repeats a story back to you after you read it too them. After looking at the Amazon preview, I think Dawn’s book would be a great asset for those using Mason’s teaching method, and that is how I would use it.

    Reply
  12. kim yaris

    February 1, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    That “one” book for me as a teacher was Joanne Hindley’s In the Company of Children. I read it faithfully before beginning each new school year. It gave me practical teaching ideas for reading and writing workshop and really set me on my path of being a better language arts teacher. Like Dawn, I ‘ve gone on to read many since then, but this is the one that I will always remember as “pivotal.”

    Reply
  13. Amy B

    February 2, 2011 at 6:04 am

    I am a library media specialist in a Pre-K – 4 school in the tundra of Connecticut (we are now at 8 snow days). When I get back to my library and if I win this book, I would use it for my lessons, especially where students might be surprised about connecting with non-fiction. I find students love the “un”-fiction books, as one kinder has said.

    Reply
  14. JANE

    February 2, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    I AM A TEACHER…. 3 AND 4TH GRADERS WERE MY “KIDS” BEFORE MY SON CAME ALONG. NOW I AM HIS TEACHER… WELL, TRYING TO BE. HE IS 4 AND HAS A MIND OF HIS OWN!!!! I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THIS BOOK TO GET BACK INTO PROFESSIONAL READING AND TO USE WITH MY “STUDENT” HERE AT HOME. 🙂

    Reply
  15. Julie

    February 2, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    I could see using this text quite a bit for tutoring as well as with my own kids. I could especially see it being useful in the summer, when I’m searching for good, fun, worthwhile educational activities to keep their minds active and thinking!

    Reply
  16. Natalia

    February 3, 2011 at 12:06 am

    I will use this book for teaching my daughter how to read and understand non fiction books, she has problems with it.

    Reply
  17. John

    February 3, 2011 at 12:07 am

    I”ll use this book for homeschooling

    Reply
  18. Marcia

    February 3, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    As a literacy coach at an elementary school, this book would be a great resource for me!

    Reply
  19. Melissa Taylor

    February 3, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    Don’t enter me – I just wanted to say hi and how cool that you love that book. I worked as a literacy coach / trainer with Steph at PEBC when Ellin Keene was director. I thought the books made the work from Mosaic so clear and easy to apply. Small world!! 🙂

    Reply
  20. Jody Erickson

    February 5, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Hi, just found your wonderful blog from reading a post on TeacherTipster! I am the 5th grade teacher at a small rural school in SD, and have been working on preparing, and am now just ready to implement, a reading workshop approach to my reading block. Dawn’s book would be such a godsend as I “feel” my way down this path to helping my students grow as readers. Thank you for the opportunity to receive her book and for all the tips, encouragement, and wisdom you share in your blog. I will be back often to visit!
    Take care,
    Jody

    Reply
  21. Michelle Kercheval

    February 6, 2011 at 9:27 am

    I would love to glean wisdom from this book, as I am always thrilled to find new ways to ignite the love of reading in my students!

    Reply

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