Quote: "The engaged reader: motivated, knowledgeable, strategic, and socially interactive. ..... The girl's comments reveal the depth of her emotional involvement in the book Number the Stars... the power of intertextuality is realized as she describes how her reading of information in the encyclopedia provided background information. In addition she describes how reading helped her understand, in a more personal way, the impact of war on children." Gambrell p. 16-17
Comment: This real-life experience of a young girl is the perfect example of an engaged reader. This student was interested in a topic, she studied it up herself, then read a book pertaining to the topic recommended by her teacher. I think it's amazing to see the process of the young girl finding an interesting topic, then being guided by her teacher to a book that is at her level which can give her new insights. I want to be that kind of teacher, with a classroom ready and able to be at the fingertips of my young readers.
Question: As a teacher, how can I be ready to help the readers in my classroom find books related the the topics in which they are interested? How can I create the type of classroom which could encourage this kind of engaged reader?
I've been thinking a lot about being ready to help guide student readers to what they actually want to read, especially after today's instruction. It kind of scared me when Sister Wimmer said that we'll probably start out with no books in our classroom. I think a bit part of being able to guide our students is developing a classroom library, or at least a good understanding of many different books. The more well-versed we are with regard to various books, the better we will be able to help our students.
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