Yesterday and today I read most of Readicide by Kelly Gallagher.
I immediately decided both to ramp up individual reading time in class and never again to award points for reading. Instead, that individual reading time is for fun, graded (if at all) just for doing it.
In my daily homework email, I noted the cancellation of the book points requirement and stated, “READ BECAUSE YOU WANT TO.”
A parent wrote back, “I love the fact that you just said ‘READ BECAUSE YOU WANT TO.’ L– certainly does!!!! Thanks.”
(In an unrelated email, another parent made my day by writing, “C– says that you are an AWESOME teacher!! I hope there are more of you next year!!”)
And I’m going to scrap those units I’d planned about sentence fragments. Who cares about sentence fragments!
And when I teach the state test prep group twice a week after school starting in March, I’m going to read a book with them. It will be fun, not drudgery.
