Reading: It's Not Just for English Teachers

When I was teaching high school English, one of the many things I loved about independent reading is that my students saw me as a reader.  I read with them nearly every day during independent reading time.  My students wanted to know the books I chose and why I chose them.  They sought recommendations from me and borrowed the books I kept in my classroom library.  Like any reader, though, I have my preferred genres and authors.  I increased the scope of my reading every year, but I was never going to dive into books on science or economics or military history.  Those are topics that couldn't hold my interest.  And yet, I had many students who were passionate about those topics.  When helping those students choose books, I often suggested they ask their science or history teachers for book recommendations.  Students returned to my class surprised to learn that their biology teacher or computer science teacher was also an avid reader.  Hmmm...should they be so shocked by this fact?

The English teachers in our school always share what we are reading with students.  We add signature lines to our emails that list the book titles we are currently reading.  We post our "Read" and "To Be Read" lists on the whiteboards in our rooms.  We book talk with kids regularly., so our students definitely know we are readers.

Equally important, though, all teachers should be readers and should share their reading lives with students.  Those math-minded students might better see the value of reading if they knew their favorite math teacher was reading The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver.  Students fascinated by DNA might find reading inspiration from their science teacher who is reading The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee.  The star soccer player might be intrigued to pick up Forward by Abby Wambach if it was recommended by the physical education teacher.  And any student might love to know that a teacher is also a huge fan of the Alex Cross series written by James Patterson.  Guilty pleasure reads are fun to share too!

No matter what content area, speciality or grade you teach, you should have an active reading life, and you should share it with your students.  Students, then, will see the tremendous range of books available to them as well as the role that reading plays in everyone's life.  I guarantee you that the books you tell your students about will start showing up in their hands.  It is such a satisfying feeling when you see a student in study hall or after school or in English class reading a book that you said you loved.  You might even open up a whole new world to them that they never would have found otherwise.

Happy Reading!