Whittaker blog post 2

In Not this but that, No More Independent Reading Without Support, Miller states the importance of balancing school reading opportunities with choice reading texts. One of the best literacy decision that I made this year was allowing my students to choose more of what they want to read and less of what I want them to read. When students have the opportunity to choose their own books they feel empowered, gain interest and are more likely to read even more books. Several of my students prefer nonfiction books about animals, space, plants etc. while a majority enjoys popular fictions books such as Pete the Cat, Laura Numeroff Series, Junie B, Fly Guy to name a few.  I like the fact that Miller mentions that even though we should let students choose their own books we should still make it a priority to make sure that students are exposed to a variety of genres. I’ve tried as much as possible, to do that for example, my students have had the opportunity to read biographies during Black History Month, poems related to the different seasons, several fairy tales and folktales and informational books on topics studied in Science and Social Studies.  Some of the texts were easy, but most were difficult but those difficult texts have helped them to grow as readers.