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A review by ultimatekate
The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
4.0
I LOVE Miller's philosophy: gave students read works of their own choosing and as much as often as possible. Take them to the library, talk about books, model reading, talk about struggles, have them recommend books to each other, give them time to read. Awesome stuff.
I also like her philosophy of allowing the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the books they read: book talks, book commercials, book recommendations. She is against the more traditional approaches of reading logs, book reports, worksheets, and tests. More awesome stuff.
I'm just having a hard time reconciling this with the current trends in education: have everyone read the same thing, have some discussions, give them a test. So I guess my criticism isn't of the book but of how we teach. To her credit, Miller does give some suggestions for how to implement her philosophy in a more structured class, and I'm going to use these suggestions.
The main thing I took away from this book is to encourage reading by talking about reading, allowing for student choice, and modeling behavior. Those are things all teachers can do to help their students.
I also like her philosophy of allowing the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the books they read: book talks, book commercials, book recommendations. She is against the more traditional approaches of reading logs, book reports, worksheets, and tests. More awesome stuff.
I'm just having a hard time reconciling this with the current trends in education: have everyone read the same thing, have some discussions, give them a test. So I guess my criticism isn't of the book but of how we teach. To her credit, Miller does give some suggestions for how to implement her philosophy in a more structured class, and I'm going to use these suggestions.
The main thing I took away from this book is to encourage reading by talking about reading, allowing for student choice, and modeling behavior. Those are things all teachers can do to help their students.