My Book Blog 1: Bonding with Students

The book I chose to read is "Reading Essentials: The Specifics You Need to Teach Reading Well" by Regie Routman. I picked this book because most of its reviews are saying this book is full of practical strategies and immediately doable tips on how to teach reading well to students. I am now 50 pages into the book and I have to agree that this book is really down-to-earth and highly practical. Even though a lot of the content sounds like professional common sense, it still challenges teachers to reflect on their own teaching and inspires them to do better.

            The core question this book attempts to answer is: what does it mean to be an effective teacher of reading? However, Routman does not give us the right or best answer to that question because there is No One" right" or best way.  Throughout the text, she gives her informed opinion, but it is up to us, the reader, to decide what work for us and our students in our particular school and classroom.  

            In my first 50 pages of reading, a couple of Routman's  ideas stood out. The first idea is bonding with students. We have been told as teachers that we must love each of our students. However, we have all had students who, for whatever reasons, are difficult for us to love. But bonding is quite another matter. Bonding could be as simple as looking at a student in the eye with interest or listening to what a student has to say. Routman argues that if there is no bonding between teachers and students, there will be no learning to occur. Once our students bond with us and trust us, anything is possible. As a community college instructor, I have heard my students talking about how they prefer our classrooms to a large four-year university classroom. A major reason is that at a community college, instructors get to know them individually as a person and it is more likely to establish that personal connection between teacher and student. I feel inspired by Routman's bonding idea because at the college-level teaching, we seem to have overlooked the human and emotional aspect of learning. We only get to meet our students once or twice a week, we assume that our students are all adults and can take care of themselves, and we suppose that as long as we teach them the content subject, we complete our job. Little did I realize how much more effective learning would be if we bond with our adult students.  

            Another good idea that Routman proposes is maintaining a reading record for ourselves. There are multiple benefits to keeping a reading record. It encourages us to read more; it keeps track of our own reading; more importantly, teachers can carry this habit over to students and help students become better readers. Routman emphasizes that we teachers have to be readers if we are to teach reading and writing well. That makes me feel ashamed of myself because I have never been a big reader and I AM a reading teacher now. I want to change and I think keeping a reading record can help me achieve my goal.