In my first year of teaching, I taught first-grade. I had twenty-seven students from a variety of cultures, socioeconomic lifestyles, and family tapestries. Some arrived early and helped take the classroom of chairs down from the desks, others arrived frustrated to be late and hurried to unpack their backpack to join the group. Morning meetings were not to be missed in Ms. Lynn’s classroom. Each day began with my students gathering on the carpet to sit in a circle around my rocking chair. Our morning meetings were routine and most of what we did was predictable. Children find great comfort in routine and safety in predictability.
We reviewed numbers by counting to the date of the day, we sang our days of the week song and determined today’s day, we reviewed proper nouns with the months of the year, determining this month, and we touched on science with the current weather and made predictions on whether we would get outside recess or not. We shared new events in classmates’ lives and talked about what to look forward to on this new day we would spend together. Our morning meetings covered state mandated standards that, on paper, sounded dull and uninspiring, but like any first-grade teacher worth her salt, I’d found a way to teach what they needed to learn in a way that made it engaging, often times silly.
What followed our morning meeting in that first-grade classroom was not listed on the state mandated standards, nor itemized in my job description, but it was what I knew in my teacher/mama heart that my students needed. It was read aloud time, and it was the first step in their becoming the proficient readers they each deserved to be.
I’d read aloud to my own children from the time I could balance them on my stomach while sitting on the couch. Daily reading time continued as they transitioned to sitting beside me on that same couch, to them reading to me as I prepared dinner. Reading together was just something we did. Reading is something we all still do. As adults, my children are highly skilled readers and, as a result, are highly successful in their chosen careers.
Seeing my children thrive in a reading rich lifestyle, I knew I needed to bring the same experience to my students. And so, each day I chose a picture book to read to my students. Some books were chosen because they fit with a topic we were covering in science or history. Some were chosen because of an upcoming holiday or day of tribute or for their classical style. More often than not, some books were chosen simply because they had made my children laugh out loud at the silliness of the characters. The stories were all different, but what they shared was the author’s ability to draw a child into the world in which the characters lived.
As I read, my students heard my voice, complete with intonation for each character, and they heard the vocabulary specific to the story. My students followed the plot with each character’s choice from settings brought to life with colorful illustrations. As I read, I would point out certain details in the pictures and introduce vocabulary I knew was new to my students. At the end of each story, I lead a discussion on what we’d read. We talked about the main idea, the setting, the plot, and even character development. And yes, I used the literary terms their future middle school teachers would use. The conversations often lead to a connection a student would make, something they had seen or heard that reminded them of something in the story and we would be off on a tangent of topics that I never could have planned, nor predicted. Those conversations often lead to a mini lesson later in the day and requests for similar books to be read on other days. The teachable moments that came from reading a simple picture book to a group of six-year-olds were endless. Those moments I will remember always. Turns out, my students will too.
I recently received a message on Facebook from one of my former students in that very first first-grade class of mine. He’d been searching for me for some time with no luck. When he told his mother of his search, she gave him my contact information as she and I had kept in touch over the years after her move across the country. When I heard his voice say my name on the phone, I instantly flashed back to that classroom. I saw him sitting directly in front of me, his short legs crossed in front of him, his hands relaxed in the space between his knees, his big brown eyes wide with wonder, and his lips curved into a soft smile as I read Tacky the Penguin.
His name is Nicholas, and he told me how much he loved coming to school in first grade. He told me he remembered a lot of what we did that year, but he wanted me to know that what he remembered the most was reading time. He wanted me to know that he officially became an avid reader in the second grade and had been reading all genres ever since. He told me his favorite genre was still fantasy and he claimed it was all because of Tacky the Penguin. And then Nicholas told me something that took my breath away for just a minute and brought instant tears to my eyes. Nicholas had recently completed his undergraduate studies and would be starting graduate work to become a teacher. He wanted me to know it was because of me that he wanted to become a teacher. He wanted me to know how much I’d inspired him from the first day in first grade to read, silly voices and all, and that he wanted to inspire children as I’d inspired him.
I’ve recently retired from teaching and so I leave it to the Nicholas’s to continue the work of inspiring young readers. Upon retiring, I was still one of the few teachers who included the old-school instructional piece of reading to her students. Reading to children has proven to give them a strong foundation in a love of reading which leads to a desire to read independently. What I always assumed was common knowledge and, therefore, common sense, was actually neither. Turns out, a teacher reading to her class is not done much anymore.
Whether you have a classroom of students of your own, or are homeschooling your children, or are simply a parent with more titles to your responsibilities than you receive a paycheck for, I can’t stress enough how important it is to read to and with your child. Become that teacher of reading. You need no special degree, nor initials after your name. Pick up a book based on your child’s interest or sense of curiosity and read with them. Do it every day and do with joy in your heart. Do it even when you’re tired or just not feeling it. Read to them and I promise you, you’ll have your Nicholas moment.
-SARA
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