October 8, 2024 • 43 mins
Donalyn Miller talks to us about access to reading and books, reader identity and reader communities, and joy in reading and learning. Donalyn is known for her work sharing the importance of self-selected independent reading and provides suggestions and resources that foster children’s love of reading and the development of positive reading identities. She is known as The Book Whisperer, the title of her first book, published in 2009. Donalyn has also written Reading in the Wild, and co-authored Game Changer! Book Access for All Kids and The Commonsense Guide to Your Classroom Library with Colby Sharp, and The Joy of Reading with Teri Lesesne. With Colby Sharp, Donalyn co-founded The Nerdy Book Club blog, which provides daily inspiration, book recommendations, resources, and advice about raising and teaching young readers. Donalyn Miller is an award-winning Texas teacher, author and reading advocate. She lives in San Antonio.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2024, Oct. 8). A conversation with Donalyn Miller (Season 5, No. 3) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/517B-1356-013D-C672-F136-M
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Education research has a problem the work of
brilliant education researchersoften doesn't reach the practice
of brilliant teachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
In this episode, donalyn Miller talks to us about
access to reading and books,reader identity and reader
communities, and joy in readingand learning.
Donalyn is known for her worksharing the importance of
self-selected, independentreading and she provides
suggestions and resources thatfoster children's love of
(00:57):
reading and the development ofpositive reading identities.
She is known as the BookWhisperer, the title of her
first book published in 2009.
Donalyn has also writtenReading in the Wild and
co-authored Game Changer, bookAccess for All Kids and the
Common Sense Guide to yourClassroom Library with Colby
(01:18):
Sharp, as well as the Joy ofReading with Terry Lesane.
With Colby Sharp, donalynco-founded the Nerdy Book Club
blog, which provides dailyinspiration, book
recommendations, resources andadvice about raising and
teaching young readers.
Donalyn Miller is anaward-winning teacher, author
(01:39):
and professional developmentleader who has taught 4th, 5th
and 6th grade language arts andsocial studies in the Fort Worth
, texas area.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So pour a cup of your favorite drink and join me.
Your host, lindsay Persaud, forClassroom Caffeine Research to
Energize your Teaching Practice.
Donalyn, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for inviting me.
This is a fun Monday kickoff.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
For me too, for sure.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I've written about some of these.
Probably one that might be wellknown to readers of the Book
Whisperer is the epiphany that Ihad.
I guess it was the first day ofschool and I will always refer
to it as the book frenzy.
But I had a modest, at the time, classroom library of several
hundred books on some oldbookcases in my room and was
(02:43):
introducing my class and myselfto my new sixth graders that
year and a boy asked me whenwill we be allowed to check out
books?
And there was something aboutthat word allowed that just
crawled all over me.
I just it upset me.
I was upset in my heart thathis expectation was that that
(03:07):
was some kind of I don't knowprivilege or contraband or
something that he was probablygoing to have to negotiate a way
to get to, or that it would bea period of time before a
language arts classroom wouldeven offer up the books in the
room to the children.
I think that was part of it too.
Classroom would even offer upthe books in the room to the
children.
I think that was part of it too.
And, like many schools, you'refamiliar with this as a
(03:28):
librarian.
You know the school libraryisn't necessarily open the first
couple of weeks of school.
So if my students do not haveaccess to the school library yet
and I don't have the classroomlibrary in a place where they
could use books, what are theyreading and what message are we
(03:51):
sending to the kids?
Now, that cascade ofunderstandings didn't happen in
the moment, but I did thinkabout it.
But my knee-jerk reaction was,of course, now we're getting
books.
Now, that's what I said to them, and then I just turned them
loose.
You know, is there anythingmore beautiful than middle
schoolers turned loose with joyand over books?
No less.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So ever since, for every single school year after
that, we checked out books thevery first day, there was no
discussion of aloud and alsoreally some intentionality
around communicating to thechildren that those books belong
to them as much as they belongto me, that it was our classroom
collection and they took moretender care of those books as a
(04:34):
result.
Almost every single lesson thatI have learned that has
dramatically altered my teachinghas come from my students, I
believe.
But one understanding that Idon't think I really came to
until I left being a regularclassroom teacher and went out
in the world was the role thataccess plays so deeply in the
(05:00):
literacy development of children.
I mean, I understood it, butyou don't really understand all
the ways that systemically, thataccess can influence outcomes
for kids.
You know public library access,the access in the home, book
ownership, just the ability toown a book.
I don't think I reallyunderstood the depth of that
(05:20):
challenge for children in ourcountry until I started going
out and visiting more libraries,more schools, more communities
than my own.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, I can totally understand that and I think that
book access is such a it's acritical challenge for so many
communities and so many familiesand so many readers in our
country and around the world.
I would say, but you know,access I think we can think of
that really in at least two waysthese days.
Right, access as in?
(05:52):
Do we have the physical access?
Are the materials?
Do they exist in a community?
And now I think we also havesort of this renewed political
interest in restricting accessto books, and I know that I have
a feeling that's probably anissue where you and I would
align quite well, donalyn.
Just in the idea that kids musthave access to books and this
(06:14):
idea of you know, are kidsallowed to check out books?
That's something that I feellike I as a school librarian, it
was something that was on mymind regularly.
Right, because we have policiesand things in place.
You know if you checked out abook and you didn't return it,
and you know if you had kids whochecked books out four years
ago and didn't return it andtheir family did not have the
money to pay for it, there was achance that kids still weren't
(06:37):
having access to books, you knowall that time later.
So yeah, it's a multi-layeredchallenge and I think it's
getting a little stickier astime goes on.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Well, I took this on in Game Changer, really, and
then I really have addressed itwith a lot of my public forward
writing sense, in that whenwe're talking about access,
we're talking about physicalaccess, of course, access to the
text themselves.
That also means access to thetechnology that young people
might need to be able to accessthat text.
(07:08):
So audio book, ebook access,the Wi-Fi access to be able to
use those things.
We're also looking at kids whomight need assistive technology
in order to access a piece oftext because they need some
support.
So that is all just physicalaccess to me.
But then we're also looking atintellectual access.
(07:28):
How are we giving and this isexactly what you're talking
about, right, how are we givingkids access to the world of our
ideas?
And then we're looking atsocial and cultural access.
How are we giving kids accessto the world of our people?
And those last two are the onesthat I think people are
actively trying to suppress.
You know they don't want kidsto have intellectual or cultural
(07:50):
access.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
For various reasons.
That's exactly right, and Iappreciate that you have
addressed that so wholeheartedlyin your Game Changer book,
because, yeah, it definitely cantake some creative thinking for
teachers to continue to offeras broad access as possible for
their students.
So, oh, yes, yeah, it'simportant work for sure.
(08:15):
So, donalyn, what do you wantlisteners to know about your
work?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Like what is my work?
That would be the question.
Right, I had someone introduceme at a conference over the
summer as an independent scholar, and I've been kind of thinking
about that ever since, becauseI'm not affiliated with the
school district or university, Idon't have a PhD, so, but I am
someone who studies all of thisanyway, so I guess the term
(08:40):
independent scholar fits as muchas anything.
If I were to really be ascholar, of anything I would
name, I would say it's the wordreader.
I study the word reader.
And how do we see ourselves inthat word and how do we see
ourselves positively in thatword?
And how do we see ourselvesnegatively in that word?
And how the heck did we getthere and how has that shaped us
(09:05):
as people?
You know I really am.
I'm also a little bit of a fanof nerd culture, and by this I
mean I love nerdy people gettingtheir nerd on.
I don't even care what it'sabout, I just I am obsessed with
watching people get their nerdon.
I love it.
I mean I love Taylor Swiftbecause she's so nerdy, she just
(09:27):
is.
I mean, look, she's a reader,she wears cardigans, she loves
cats.
If she wasn't who she is.
I think she might be alibrarian at this point in her
life.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You know, I think you might be right, or she would
own like a cat cafe full ofbooks, right?
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Okay, so I have a friend here who is he's a 50
year old man obsessed with StarTrek, totally into it, but I
mean romance novelists.
I have a friend who is a middleschool teacher in Illinois who
also writes romance novels andshe's introduced me to a whole
thing of their culture.
So I think my, and then ofcourse, the access piece, and I
mean the big A access, like Idescribed it.
(10:07):
So if I wanted people to knowanything about my work, I would
say that I study readers, Istudy nerds and I study access.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And the confluence where those three things come
together is kind of where I sit.
I'm also very powerfullycommitted to the idea that we
should continuously be askingourselves who does reading
belong to anyway?
Because reading doesn't belongto schools.
Reading doesn't belong toEnglish teachers and, as
(10:44):
heretical as the statement mightbe, reading doesn't belong to
librarians either.
Reading belongs to readers.
That means the young people infront of us who are readers
themselves.
The phrase real world reallybothers me when we say, well,
when you get out in the realworld, kids, they are in it.
They're in it right now.
(11:04):
They're not waiting to be partof the real world.
You and I've worked with middleschoolers.
They're living the real world.
If we do not make reading seementicing, engaging, enjoyable,
worthwhile in any way whileyoung people are in school with
us, why would they continuedoing it?
So, anyway, I have feelings youcan tell about this topic.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, I think this is such an important distinction
because it really is as ifreading has sort of been
colonized by the schoolatmosphere, right.
And then it does place a verylimiting view of what reading is
and what it can do in our lives.
And I know a lot of the readersI work with.
They seem to fall into at leasttwo camps.
One is just that reading is aschool-based task.
I do it when I have to and Iget out of it what somebody
(11:56):
tells me to.
And then I think you see someother readers who maybe see
themselves as readers, but theyhave to guard their personal
reading identity from theinfluence of school, right, it's
almost like they have to readoutside of school in order to
maintain who they are as readers.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
They're underground.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
They're underground readers, exactly In your words.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yes, Split personalities.
You have one reading life atschool and another reading life
that really belongs to yousomewhere else.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Right, Right.
It's a little bit bizarre thathere we are kind of in this
moment where reading, the act ofreading, has been utilized in
such a way within school that itactually limits reading in so
many ways, and I think that thatcan be particularly by the time
young people get to middleschool, and I think that that
(12:46):
can be particularly by the timeyoung people get to middle
school.
I think that can be a verychallenging misconception to
help them navigate right thatreading does in fact belong to
them and that they can read whatthey want to, they can learn
about things they want to andthey can build community around
what they want to know and howthey are engaging in reading
behaviors.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I'm really studying reading communities right now
because you know my longtimecollaborator, colby Sharp, and I
, his fifth graders, we're just.
I can write about how to set upa classroom library collection,
right.
I can write about conferringwith kids.
I can describe those things.
But that magic of where I canstand in Colby's classroom and I
(13:29):
see a kid get up from theirdesk, walk over to the classroom
library collection, pull a bookoff the shelf, walk over to a
classmate at their table, putthat book on their desk how do
you teach that?
How do you teach it?
And yet I have watched ithappen year after year after
year after year in classroomslike mine and classrooms like
(13:51):
Colby's and classrooms like manyother teachers right.
So I'm kind of interested inthat, because many of our
communities are not.
Our community-based supportsystems for almost everything
have changed dramatically overthe past 30 years, let's just
say, and I think our communityof support for readers has
changed quite dramatically andwhilst public communities for
(14:14):
reading have changed or perhapseven disappeared, the role of
communities in school becomeseven more important.
In just cooking readers inschool becomes even more
important in just cookingreaders, you know, and just
cultivating a place where joyfulreading can even occur.
We could just change how wetalk to kids about reading.
I think it would help a lot.
I mean, there are a lot ofsystemic things going on here
(14:35):
that are beyond the ability of asingle teacher, administrator
or librarian to do anythingexcept, you know, try to work
around.
But we could change the way wetalk to kids about reading.
We could make it sound lesspainful.
You know, terry and I used totalk about this that people are
suspicious of joy at school.
Right, like, if we don'torganize the joy, make a rubric
(14:59):
for the joy, schedule the joy,why is joy happening, you know?
And if kids are enjoyingreading too much, it must not be
that rigorous, right it's sotrue.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, it's so true, and it really, it really is kind
of scary isn't it that?
you know, because, Donald, andas you were talking about, you
know how do we arrive at thosemoments.
I really do think of them asbeing somewhat magical and
they're really um, it's improv,right, it's, it's improvised,
it's not something that you cannecessarily schedule Like right.
(15:33):
Nobody has in their plans.
At 10, 13, you know, um, Jillis going to recommend a book to
her friend.
It just doesn't work that way.
I think that there's just thistension between what is expected
in schools and how schools areexpected to function, and
finding the space for that and Ithink that that is one of so
(15:53):
many tensions that oftenindividual teachers are working
within in their own classroomsis, you know, how do we maintain
that space for improvisationand for reactions and reactions
(16:15):
to occur that aren't sort ofscheduled or linked to a
standard or related to thelearning objective of the day?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But what we're talking about is how are the
children in front of us actuallyinfluencing the work in a
classroom?
And if there is no jazz improv,if none of that's happening,
then you're not.
When I was a new teacher Okay,I'm tripping over myself a
little here, but you're thinkingwhile you're talking.
When I was a new teacher, Iremember them talking to us
(16:44):
about teachable moments, aboutbeing good kid watchers and
reflective practitioners.
What are the kids telling usthey know?
What are they telling us theyneed?
What are they telling us theyneed next?
And one size does not fit all.
The very minute we decide we'redoing everything the same for
every single child in our care,we are making a decision to
(17:06):
leave out some kids.
Now there may be short-termjustifications where that may
need to happen in order toprovide equitable learning
opportunities for all kids, butit shouldn't be just the way we
run things.
We march through the curriculumall the kids like little
soldiers, and their lives, theirexperiences, their opinions,
their readiness, their beliefsare not considered at all.
(17:29):
That doesn't really sound likean education to me.
It sounds like brainwashing orindoctrination, and it honestly
sounds kind of boring and awfulnot just for kids either.
I mean, can we just admit thatI don't think my path to
self-actualization as a humanbeing is going to occur by
(17:50):
marching through the teacher'sguide one day after the other.
It sounds exhausting and awful.
Maybe that's just me, I don'tknow.
Maybe it does.
Don't we want education to besomething that the children
participate in, and not justsomething that is done to them?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, absolutely, and , like you said, it's not
written in the margins of theteacher's guide.
That's not how we arrive atthose moments where the true
learning happens, or those richconnections where an individual
child in our classroom is ableto connect something they're
learning with something theyknow from their past, from their
interests.
You know, those are the kindsof things that you're not going
(18:31):
to find in the script and Ithink if that is where our focus
is directed and in manyinstances I think that's where
our focus is then held bypolicies, it really does become.
I always think of it as like ingrayscale, whenever I think
about the classroom I want to bein.
It's colorful, it's lively,it's energetic.
(18:52):
There's that productive humthat happens in great classrooms
.
And when I think about where somany policies have pushed us
over the last several decades, Ido often like the image that
comes to mind is just sort of ingrayscale, right, like all of
that color is sort of drainedout and we're just sort of left
(19:12):
going through the motionswithout that joy, because you
can't schedule it.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, it is.
It is a giver.
It's like a giver with noTaylor Swift cameo.
Can I just say that it's true,it is a giver.
It's like a giver with noTaylor Swift cameo.
Can I just say that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's true, we've bled all the color out of it.
You're absolutely right, andwe've made it a joyless place in
order to systematize somethings.
Engagement and motivationdoesn't seem to be discussed as
much as it was when I was a newteacher.
And I'm just wondering I mean,it's been 20 years, of course
was when I was a new teacher,and I'm just wondering, I mean,
it's been 20 years.
Of course we know how thependulum swings, but how can we
have any conversations aboutteaching learning that don't
(19:49):
involve engagement andmotivation?
With reading, what I see is kidsare buried with goals that are
not theirs.
I mean, we pile so many readinggoals on top of kids, but if
all of their reading goals areexternal reading goals, then
reading itself is notintrinsically motivating to the
(20:09):
child.
So they've got to have someskin in the game.
I mean, even if okay, even ifsomething like letting them pick
with genres of books they read.
You know people have asked meabout this for a long time.
They, what do you do with thekids in your class that just
don't read?
And I will tell them I don'thave that many.
To be honest, you know you kindof just set the tone that this
(20:29):
is language arts class.
We read and write in here.
It's kind of what we do, it'skind of why you're here, but
sometimes you'll get to choosewhat you get to read and
sometimes you'll get to choosewhat you get to write about, and
we'll all negotiate thattogether.
You'll get to make your choicestoo.
I think that's where you canstill meet some academic goals
(20:50):
with kids but get them to buy ina little bit, because they do
have a little bit of choice.
They do have a little bit ofagency.
They do have a little bit ofautonomy.
Whether or not you're readingand writing in my classroom is
not really something we're goingto talk about in detail.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, it just is right.
This is just like you said.
It's just what we do.
This is the space where thishappens.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
No one goes to the math teacher and goes.
You know, I'm just not feelingit today, you know.
But we let them do that withreading and writing.
It just blows my mind.
You know, but you know.
But, yes, your choices and whatyou read matter just as much
here.
So I think that's the tone thatwe're setting.
But if we're not, if we're notpaying any attention at all to
(21:33):
the decline in motivation andengagement for reading
Scholastic documented this intheir kids and family reading
report, which they did for manyyears.
I wish they would pick it backup again.
It was great Survey that theydid of tens of thousands of
American school children andtheir caregiving adults, and
what they documented overdecades was what they've now
coined the decline by nine, thedrop off in kids reading
(21:57):
interest, self-reported readinginterest that starts at about
the age of nine.
And those of us who've workedin middle school we know there's
no magic pendulum where they'reswinging back and suddenly
rediscovering reading in theseventh grade without some
significant adult role modelingand support influence.
You know we have to make itsound exciting again to get them
(22:19):
back.
So what's going on with oureight and nine-year-olds?
You know, that's the questionmaybe we could all be asking,
because we're all worried thatour teenagers are not reading.
Well, how far back does it go?
According to this Kids andFamily Reading Report, the peak
years for kids to tell us thatthey like reading is eight, nine
.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Right, and I think that, particularly in the
environments where you and Ihave worked in Texas and Florida
respectively I think we've seenkind of the stronghold of
standardized, high-stakes,standardized testing has really,
I think, impacted that, becauseyou know, as soon as you say
decline by nine, what do Iautomatically think of?
Well, third grade, right, yeahme too, third grade right and
(23:06):
whether that is the causation.
There is certainly acorrelation there, right?
This is when this tends tohappen and you're right, unless
you have someone sort of showingyou the way back to a life of
reading, an interest in reading,goals and ambitions and
interests that are driven by you, you the reader.
I think there are some readerswho never pick that back up.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
There are people walking around who graduated
from high school and it was asigh of relief to them that they
never had to read another book.
You know that's right.
So and then we complain thatparents don't read and their
kids don't read.
Well, if we want reading rolemodels for our kids, I think we
need to graduate some, becausetheir parents were in our
classrooms 15 years ago and wedidn't spark a love of reading
(23:48):
with them there and now weexpect them to be phoenixes,
rising from the ashes of theirown reading failure and
discovering reading now thatthey've given birth.
It just doesn't.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It doesn't work that way.
It doesn't really work that way.
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It doesn't really work that way, you know.
It's interesting that you and Iare so quick to identify
standardized testing as one ofthe primary reasons this happens
, because I should talk toteachers and librarians about
the decline by nine in myworkshops and I will let them
just talk at their tables to tryto identify some of the things
that they think are leading kidsaway.
(24:22):
And even though standardizedtesting is always a significant
answer in the room, a lot ofpeople will tell me that it's
technology, technology.
Technology technology is thereason that kids are not reading
.
I'm like do you really thinkthat this is all the drop-off
20% drop-off that we candocument in just a couple of
years is a bunch ofeight-year-olds getting cell
(24:44):
phones.
I don't know that.
That's completely true.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
In today's day and age.
I think that there are a lot ofkids who have more or less
unrestricted access totechnology well before the age
of nine, and so I don't see thatas a strong factor.
I also think that it kind ofbegs the question as to you know
what?
Are kids, back to your word,allowed to read?
What actually counts as reading, if they're reading a news
(25:10):
article or even if they arewatching a video?
I tend to think of text andreading in a very broad sort of
sense, and I know a lot of whatwe've talked about so far is
really book-based reading, butthere are so many other ways to
read and engage with reading inthe world.
Technology does not seem likethe thing to me that would
(25:31):
interfere in this decline bynine.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, I will just say I just saw it come across my
feed today so I will goinvestigate.
But apparently there's justbeen a meta-analysis looking at
digital reading and seeing thatit is not better for
comprehension than print.
So we need to one recognizethat print media still needs to
be some of the primary textaccess that kids have.
(25:55):
The digital is not yetsubstituting for it from a
comprehension developmentstandpoint.
Let me be careful.
But I want kids to read onanything.
They will read on, and I knowkids that will read entire books
on their cell phones.
They will read them.
So we have to value all theliteracies that we're bringing
(26:16):
to the table here.
We've got family literacies,oral literacies, visual literacy
.
We've certainly got informationliteracy that you and I
probably care a lot about thesedays.
We have all the differentformats that we can access
information and entertainmentand stories from and kids.
They're largely self-taught inmost of those literacies, so how
(26:39):
can we teach them the toolsthat they need to be safe, to be
smart, to expand their ownlearning for themselves through
all the types of literacies thatthey are practicing on a
regular basis?
The definition of literacy isexpanding and even I, someone
with the moniker as the bookwhisperer am not such a Luddite
(27:01):
that I do not understand thepotential of all the different
literacies that we have.
I enjoy them myself and I thinkwe should value them with
students.
It's also another reason whythey treat print media as like a
dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Right, when that is the only thing that's sort of
shoved in their direction.
I think that it can read as adisconnection from the rest of
the world that they live in,particularly for some young
people who are very much engagedin online worlds and online
reading.
Yeah, I saw that study also,and it's definitely something
I'm going to take a deeper diveinto, because I'm very
(27:38):
interested in what theirmeasures were.
What was their criteria for thestudies that they selected?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
What equitable access did the kids have to the
technology and all these?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Right.
And also, I would wonder youknow, how is comprehension
measured?
Because I think that that's aquestion that I've thought a lot
about really since the days ofaccelerated reader and you know,
when that became such a hotidea in schools and while it did
seem to get some competitivekids engaged in reading, for
(28:09):
others it really turned them off, I think, because you know, if
their interpretation of a textdidn't match the five questions
that they were forced to respondto at the end of a book, you
book, it begs the question whatexactly is comprehension and how
do we in fact measure that in away that is valid and reliable
and meets readers where they areand where their understanding
(28:30):
of a text actually comes intoplay?
So, yeah, there are just somany, I think, complex questions
that it really does bring meback to something you stated
earlier in this idea of who doesreading belong to, and
particularly whenever we, Ithink, whenever we read studies
like that, when I know, when Ithink critically about ideas
(28:51):
like that, it brings me rightback to all of those questions
who's owning the reading?
What are we actually measuring?
So it's definitely a topic thatI think is worth pursuing for
anyone who cares about readingand understanding.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, you could get existential here.
What do we mean by reading?
I mean really you really gopretty deep in the weeds here on
the questions like this, but Ihave to ask myself, you know, if
kids are largely self-taught inthe uses of those devices and
we're seeing again and againthat the comprehension strength
on equitable measures is not thesame as it is with the print
(29:25):
right Then what do we need toteach kids about digital reading
?
That's the question I'm asking.
You know, that's what I'mthinking about.
Okay, so they're teachingthemselves and it's not perhaps
getting them where they need togo.
Are we just going to decidethat we don't need to care about
them reading on devices?
Well, of course not.
(29:45):
Look at the world that they'realready in.
So how can we teach them toread on those things better?
You know, that's what I'mthinking of here.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And how do we help them get what they need?
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah, gosh, I talked to so many librarians about AI
at the workshop I was at lastweek up in Dallas and oh, that's
another topic that's comingtowards us.
The train is coming towards us,whether we want to deal with it
or not.
So, and I think the literacyand library community is very
tangled in that conversationalready.
(30:18):
We're looking at copyright,we're looking at intellectual
property and freedom.
We're also looking at what dowe mean by art?
I mean, what do we mean by thelanguage arts?
There's a lot of turmoil in theliteracy and library world
right now and I don't think youand I perhaps knew that we were
getting ourselves into that whenwe became educators, but no, I
(30:41):
could not have foreseen thismoment, but it is a challenge.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I think there are some really wonderful
opportunities.
You know, it kind of reminds meof, you know, other sort of
freak out moments that we've hadin the world of education where
you know, there's this greattechnology, there's this
wonderful opportunity, but, wait, nobody knows how to use it
properly.
In air quotes, right, and sofiguring out what that is and
how do we in fact supportlearners to navigate the world,
(31:08):
like you said that they'realready in, I think that it does
no one any kind of service topretend that these things don't
exist or that we are going to,in some really strong way, kind
of restrict access to it.
I think instead, we have tolearn how to navigate and we
have to help young learners andreaders also navigate this world
(31:31):
, because it is definitely aworld they're going to be
growing up in and growingthrough.
So how do we use AItechnologies responsibly and in
positive kinds of ways, ratherthan, you know, just sort of
trying to distance ourselves orpretend, you know, take the
ostrich approach, like it's notreally happening?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Because it's happening, whether we want it to
or not.
The world is happening.
That's right.
I'm also looking a bit aboutempathy.
I've been reading a lot aboutthe decline in empathy in our
society that they're documenting, and of course, social media is
one of the factors that they'relooking at.
The decline of justcommunity-based social support
structures, where we're caringfor one another, is another
(32:11):
piece of it.
But we've had a couple ofstudies now that show that
reading books, particularlyfiction, fosters empathy.
Reading books, particularlyfiction, fosters empathy.
And I do feel that one of thethings that we might have done
with the influence onstandardized testing is
redirected what the goal of aliberal arts education was
(32:33):
supposed to be in the firstplace, which was to make us
better human beings.
You know, all stories are theEarth story, right, like every
single story ever written, isabout trying to become us better
human beings.
You know, all stories are theUr story, right, like every
single story ever written, isabout trying to become a better
human being, and it's this ideathat we've forgotten that piece
of it.
When we've turned reading intoa skill that must be performed
(32:54):
and measured, we've lost thetransformative part of the
conversation.
You know, terry, and I talkedabout this in the joy of reading
.
Reading is an act oftransformation.
It's not a performance andwe've turned it into a
performance and it's a skill tobe measured.
And yes, it is a skill.
Kids who are not capable andconfident readers are not
(33:16):
enjoying reading.
We were.
I don't think kids can just gomagically, go into a library and
just become readers.
That's I think I'm trying tosay.
They need our support in allthe ways that they can get it.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
They don't necessarily just absorb books
just by being in their presence.
You know, I tried that one time.
I had a hard test to study forand I slept on the book.
I'm not real sure that itactually got me anywhere.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No, no.
So of course, high qualityinstruction is always going to
be a part of the conversation,but is it high quality
instruction if the kids' voicesare never considered?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Right, it reminds me of a few things that you said
earlier.
Just, you know that readers havegot to have some stake in the
game.
How do we get them to their owngoals, rather than goals that
are sort of imposed upon them or, as you said, buried with goals
that are not theirs?
And everything we've talkedabout so far really reminds me
(34:11):
of how important it is for ourlearning environments to be
learner-centered, right, andthat is something that I think
high-stakes, standardized,skills-based kind of testing
where everything is performativeand not necessarily
internalized.
I think that those two thingsstand in stark contrast to me.
(34:32):
There's just this tensionbetween what the systems of
schools really force teachersand learners to do versus what
learning looks like, and, atleast in my view, in the last 20
years that I've spent ineducation, you know, after being
a K-12 student, that is it.
Just it reminds me that sooften our policies are imposed
(34:55):
upon education from people whodo not come from within the
field of education.
They maybe have never observedlearners in their natural
habitat or in the wild, so tospeak, and it's put teachers and
learners in just some reallydifficult, really soul-sucking
kinds of positions.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
One size does not fit all.
One size does not fit all, andkids need a reason to persist.
What's the learning for?
How is?
And again and again, they thinkthat the purpose of reading is
to complete the activities thatthey're assigned to go with the
(35:47):
reading.
The reading itself is not Idon't want to say not meaningful
, but it's not even the point ofthe reading.
The purpose of the reading isto complete reading-related
activities after they are donewith the reading or sometimes
while they're reading.
You know annotations, marginalia, all of these copying
vocabulary words we bury kidswith so much work, often just
(36:10):
for the purposes of generatinggrades.
We can't even really point toan academic reason why it's
taking place, other thanlanguage arts.
Teachers need grades in thegrade book.
So I mean and kids tell me this, and teachers tell me this, I'm
required to have X number ofgrades, so I need my kids to do
X, y, z.
And kids, why are you doingthis?
(36:31):
Well, the teacher gave us thispaper and I have to answer these
questions.
I mean, you don't need someonewith an education background to
go in and ask these questions.
The kids and the teachers willtell you these answers.
So I agree with you.
There are people who do nothave an education background who
are honestly running some ofthese conversations, I feel, and
(36:52):
it's not that they don't havean education background, it's
that they don't even care aboutasking the questions to the
people who are actually there.
And it's confirmation bias kindof stuff, where we're asking
the questions to the people weknow are going to give us the
answers that we want.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Right, Well, and, as you said, talking to teachers
and kids puts you in a verydifferent space of that
conversation than you know anecho chamber of someone else
who's designing poor policy andalso still not as valid as the
kids and the teachers themselves.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I'm not there, you know.
So I have grandchildren wholove to tell me all about their
school experiences on a regularbasis.
Right now I have a 15-year-old,a 12-year-old and a
six-year-old, so I'mrepresenting the full K-12
spectrum right now with just mygrandchildren.
And you know, as a middleschool teacher, if you have
respect with your middle, ifthey know you respect them and
(37:50):
that's what I mean If yourmiddle schoolers know that you
respect them, they will tell youeverything they will, they will
.
So it's about relationshipbuilding.
It's about really payingattention to the children and to
teachers and then justproviding the support and the
resources in order for themajority of our kids I mean,
(38:11):
really we want it to be all ofthem but for our kids to be
confident, competent readers whodon't hate it when it's all
over.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I really like those two words confident and
competent readers because Ithink that that is what helps us
to get to a place where we seeourselves as readers and where
we see ourselves as continuouslygrowing in our identity as
readers.
Yeah, I really like those twokind of key words.
And this actually takes us verynaturally to my last question
for you, donalyn.
Given the challenges of today'seducational climate, what
(38:46):
message do you want?
Teachers?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
to hear.
You may be the best reader andwriter that your students know.
Even if you don't feel that wayyourself, don't miss an
opportunity to show them what'sjoyful about it, because if you
aren't going to, they might notget it this year.
We can't control everythingthat is affecting the literacy
development of our studentsright now.
(39:10):
Would that education wasactually in the hands of
teachers and parents.
But what we can do is this Canwe make a promise to ourselves
that the students in our carewill have more positive reading
experiences this year than theyhave negative ones?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Because I think that is in our control back to what
can we do today, what can we dotomorrow in order to best serve
the young people who are rightin front of us who, as you said,
you may be the best reading andwriting role model they have,
(39:49):
and certainly you may be theperson they have as a reading
and writing role model for thelongest period during a day, and
so I think that that is such animportant message, and I think
it really does help to sort ofrecenter energy and hopefully
give us a little bit of that, alittle more encouragement to
keep on with the good work.
Yes, yes.
(40:09):
Well, donalyn, I thank you somuch for your time today and I
thank you for your tremendouscontributions to the field of
education and reading.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
I appreciate the invitation.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation and I hope it's
useful for the people who enjoyit later.
Thank you, so do I.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Donalyn Miller is known for her work as the Book
Whisperer, the title of herfirst book published in 2009.
Since then, donalyn has writtenReading in the Wild and
co-authored Game Changer, bookAccess for All Kids and the
Common Sense Guide to yourClassroom Library with Colby
Sharp, as well as the Joy ofReading with Terry Lesane.
(40:48):
With her friend andcollaborator, colby Sharp,
donalyn co-founded the NerdyBook Club blog, which provides
daily inspiration, bookrecommendations, resources and
advice about raising andteaching young readers.
Donalyn is the founder of theannual summer hashtag book a day
challenge and co-hosts, alongwith Colby Sharp, the monthly
(41:12):
Twitter chat hashtag title talk,a monthly chat about books and
reading.
From 2014 to 2019, donalynserved as Scholastic Book Fair's
Ambassador of IndependentReading Advocacy, traveling to
conferences and schools as areading ambassador, serving on
several Scholastic advisoryboards and hosting the web-based
(41:35):
teaching tips and book talkshow, the Book Whisper.
Back to the Books.
Donalyn's articles aboutteaching and reading have
appeared in publications such asGifted Child, international
Education Week, teacher, theReading Teacher, voices from the
Middle, educational Leadership,educational Leadership Horn
(41:59):
Book and the Washington Post.
In 2018, donalyn was awardedTCTLA's Edmund J Farrell
Distinguished LifetimeAchievement Award for her
contributions to the languagearts teaching profession.
Donalyn won the inaugural 2013Terry Lizane Award for
(42:21):
Mentorship and Leadership inYoung Adult Literature from the
Assembly on Literature forAdolescents, or ALLEN, a
division of the National Councilfor the Teachers of English, or
NCTE.
Donalyn Miller is anaward-winning teacher, author
and professional developmentleader who has taught 4th, 5th
and 6th grade English, languagearts and social studies in the
(42:42):
Fort Worth, texas, area.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
For the good of all students.
Classroom Caffeine aims toenergize education, research and
practice.
If this show gives you thingsto think about, help us spread
the word.
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You can support the show bysubscribing to your colleagues
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You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
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(43:06):
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On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
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(43:29):
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We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Valuru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
(43:49):
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Education research has a problem the work of
brilliant education researchersoften doesn't reach the practice
of brilliant teachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
In this episode, donalyn Miller talks to us about
access to reading and books,reader identity and reader
communities, and joy in readingand learning.
Donalyn is known for her worksharing the importance of
self-selected, independentreading and she provides
suggestions and resources thatfoster children's love of
(00:57):
reading and the development ofpositive reading identities.
She is known as the BookWhisperer, the title of her
first book published in 2009.
Donalyn has also writtenReading in the Wild and
co-authored Game Changer, bookAccess for All Kids and the
Common Sense Guide to yourClassroom Library with Colby
(01:18):
Sharp, as well as the Joy ofReading with Terry Lesane.
With Colby Sharp, donalynco-founded the Nerdy Book Club
blog, which provides dailyinspiration, book
recommendations, resources andadvice about raising and
teaching young readers.
Donalyn Miller is anaward-winning teacher, author
(01:39):
and professional developmentleader who has taught 4th, 5th
and 6th grade language arts andsocial studies in the Fort Worth
, texas area.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So pour a cup of your favorite drink and join me.
Your host, lindsay Persaud, forClassroom Caffeine Research to
Energize your Teaching Practice.
Donalyn, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for inviting me.
This is a fun Monday kickoff.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
For me too, for sure.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I've written about some of these.
Probably one that might be wellknown to readers of the Book
Whisperer is the epiphany that Ihad.
I guess it was the first day ofschool and I will always refer
to it as the book frenzy.
But I had a modest, at the time, classroom library of several
hundred books on some oldbookcases in my room and was
(02:43):
introducing my class and myselfto my new sixth graders that
year and a boy asked me whenwill we be allowed to check out
books?
And there was something aboutthat word allowed that just
crawled all over me.
I just it upset me.
I was upset in my heart thathis expectation was that that
(03:07):
was some kind of I don't knowprivilege or contraband or
something that he was probablygoing to have to negotiate a way
to get to, or that it would bea period of time before a
language arts classroom wouldeven offer up the books in the
room to the children.
I think that was part of it too.
Classroom would even offer upthe books in the room to the
children.
I think that was part of it too.
And, like many schools, you'refamiliar with this as a
(03:28):
librarian.
You know the school libraryisn't necessarily open the first
couple of weeks of school.
So if my students do not haveaccess to the school library yet
and I don't have the classroomlibrary in a place where they
could use books, what are theyreading and what message are we
(03:51):
sending to the kids?
Now, that cascade ofunderstandings didn't happen in
the moment, but I did thinkabout it.
But my knee-jerk reaction was,of course, now we're getting
books.
Now, that's what I said to them, and then I just turned them
loose.
You know, is there anythingmore beautiful than middle
schoolers turned loose with joyand over books?
No less.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So ever since, for every single school year after
that, we checked out books thevery first day, there was no
discussion of aloud and alsoreally some intentionality
around communicating to thechildren that those books belong
to them as much as they belongto me, that it was our classroom
collection and they took moretender care of those books as a
(04:34):
result.
Almost every single lesson thatI have learned that has
dramatically altered my teachinghas come from my students, I
believe.
But one understanding that Idon't think I really came to
until I left being a regularclassroom teacher and went out
in the world was the role thataccess plays so deeply in the
(05:00):
literacy development of children.
I mean, I understood it, butyou don't really understand all
the ways that systemically, thataccess can influence outcomes
for kids.
You know public library access,the access in the home, book
ownership, just the ability toown a book.
I don't think I reallyunderstood the depth of that
(05:20):
challenge for children in ourcountry until I started going
out and visiting more libraries,more schools, more communities
than my own.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, I can totally understand that and I think that
book access is such a it's acritical challenge for so many
communities and so many familiesand so many readers in our
country and around the world.
I would say, but you know,access I think we can think of
that really in at least two waysthese days.
Right, access as in?
(05:52):
Do we have the physical access?
Are the materials?
Do they exist in a community?
And now I think we also havesort of this renewed political
interest in restricting accessto books, and I know that I have
a feeling that's probably anissue where you and I would
align quite well, donalyn.
Just in the idea that kids musthave access to books and this
(06:14):
idea of you know, are kidsallowed to check out books?
That's something that I feellike I as a school librarian, it
was something that was on mymind regularly.
Right, because we have policiesand things in place.
You know if you checked out abook and you didn't return it,
and you know if you had kids whochecked books out four years
ago and didn't return it andtheir family did not have the
money to pay for it, there was achance that kids still weren't
(06:37):
having access to books, you knowall that time later.
So yeah, it's a multi-layeredchallenge and I think it's
getting a little stickier astime goes on.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Well, I took this on in Game Changer, really, and
then I really have addressed itwith a lot of my public forward
writing sense, in that whenwe're talking about access,
we're talking about physicalaccess, of course, access to the
text themselves.
That also means access to thetechnology that young people
might need to be able to accessthat text.
(07:08):
So audio book, ebook access,the Wi-Fi access to be able to
use those things.
We're also looking at kids whomight need assistive technology
in order to access a piece oftext because they need some
support.
So that is all just physicalaccess to me.
But then we're also looking atintellectual access.
(07:28):
How are we giving and this isexactly what you're talking
about, right, how are we givingkids access to the world of our
ideas?
And then we're looking atsocial and cultural access.
How are we giving kids accessto the world of our people?
And those last two are the onesthat I think people are
actively trying to suppress.
You know they don't want kidsto have intellectual or cultural
(07:50):
access.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
For various reasons.
That's exactly right, and Iappreciate that you have
addressed that so wholeheartedlyin your Game Changer book,
because, yeah, it definitely cantake some creative thinking for
teachers to continue to offeras broad access as possible for
their students.
So, oh, yes, yeah, it'simportant work for sure.
(08:15):
So, donalyn, what do you wantlisteners to know about your
work?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Like what is my work?
That would be the question.
Right, I had someone introduceme at a conference over the
summer as an independent scholar, and I've been kind of thinking
about that ever since, becauseI'm not affiliated with the
school district or university, Idon't have a PhD, so, but I am
someone who studies all of thisanyway, so I guess the term
(08:40):
independent scholar fits as muchas anything.
If I were to really be ascholar, of anything I would
name, I would say it's the wordreader.
I study the word reader.
And how do we see ourselves inthat word and how do we see
ourselves positively in thatword?
And how do we see ourselvesnegatively in that word?
And how the heck did we getthere and how has that shaped us
(09:05):
as people?
You know I really am.
I'm also a little bit of a fanof nerd culture, and by this I
mean I love nerdy people gettingtheir nerd on.
I don't even care what it'sabout, I just I am obsessed with
watching people get their nerdon.
I love it.
I mean I love Taylor Swiftbecause she's so nerdy, she just
(09:27):
is.
I mean, look, she's a reader,she wears cardigans, she loves
cats.
If she wasn't who she is.
I think she might be alibrarian at this point in her
life.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You know, I think you might be right, or she would
own like a cat cafe full ofbooks, right?
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Okay, so I have a friend here who is he's a 50
year old man obsessed with StarTrek, totally into it, but I
mean romance novelists.
I have a friend who is a middleschool teacher in Illinois who
also writes romance novels andshe's introduced me to a whole
thing of their culture.
So I think my, and then ofcourse, the access piece, and I
mean the big A access, like Idescribed it.
(10:07):
So if I wanted people to knowanything about my work, I would
say that I study readers, Istudy nerds and I study access.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And the confluence where those three things come
together is kind of where I sit.
I'm also very powerfullycommitted to the idea that we
should continuously be askingourselves who does reading
belong to anyway?
Because reading doesn't belongto schools.
Reading doesn't belong toEnglish teachers and, as
(10:44):
heretical as the statement mightbe, reading doesn't belong to
librarians either.
Reading belongs to readers.
That means the young people infront of us who are readers
themselves.
The phrase real world reallybothers me when we say, well,
when you get out in the realworld, kids, they are in it.
They're in it right now.
(11:04):
They're not waiting to be partof the real world.
You and I've worked with middleschoolers.
They're living the real world.
If we do not make reading seementicing, engaging, enjoyable,
worthwhile in any way whileyoung people are in school with
us, why would they continuedoing it?
So, anyway, I have feelings youcan tell about this topic.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, I think this is such an important distinction
because it really is as ifreading has sort of been
colonized by the schoolatmosphere, right.
And then it does place a verylimiting view of what reading is
and what it can do in our lives.
And I know a lot of the readersI work with.
They seem to fall into at leasttwo camps.
One is just that reading is aschool-based task.
I do it when I have to and Iget out of it what somebody
(11:56):
tells me to.
And then I think you see someother readers who maybe see
themselves as readers, but theyhave to guard their personal
reading identity from theinfluence of school, right, it's
almost like they have to readoutside of school in order to
maintain who they are as readers.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
They're underground.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
They're underground readers, exactly In your words.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yes, Split personalities.
You have one reading life atschool and another reading life
that really belongs to yousomewhere else.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Right, Right.
It's a little bit bizarre thathere we are kind of in this
moment where reading, the act ofreading, has been utilized in
such a way within school that itactually limits reading in so
many ways, and I think that thatcan be particularly by the time
young people get to middleschool, and I think that that
(12:46):
can be particularly by the timeyoung people get to middle
school.
I think that can be a verychallenging misconception to
help them navigate right thatreading does in fact belong to
them and that they can read whatthey want to, they can learn
about things they want to andthey can build community around
what they want to know and howthey are engaging in reading
behaviors.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I'm really studying reading communities right now
because you know my longtimecollaborator, colby Sharp, and I
, his fifth graders, we're just.
I can write about how to set upa classroom library collection,
right.
I can write about conferringwith kids.
I can describe those things.
But that magic of where I canstand in Colby's classroom and I
(13:29):
see a kid get up from theirdesk, walk over to the classroom
library collection, pull a bookoff the shelf, walk over to a
classmate at their table, putthat book on their desk how do
you teach that?
How do you teach it?
And yet I have watched ithappen year after year after
year after year in classroomslike mine and classrooms like
(13:51):
Colby's and classrooms like manyother teachers right.
So I'm kind of interested inthat, because many of our
communities are not.
Our community-based supportsystems for almost everything
have changed dramatically overthe past 30 years, let's just
say, and I think our communityof support for readers has
changed quite dramatically andwhilst public communities for
(14:14):
reading have changed or perhapseven disappeared, the role of
communities in school becomeseven more important.
In just cooking readers inschool becomes even more
important in just cookingreaders, you know, and just
cultivating a place where joyfulreading can even occur.
We could just change how wetalk to kids about reading.
I think it would help a lot.
I mean, there are a lot ofsystemic things going on here
(14:35):
that are beyond the ability of asingle teacher, administrator
or librarian to do anythingexcept, you know, try to work
around.
But we could change the way wetalk to kids about reading.
We could make it sound lesspainful.
You know, terry and I used totalk about this that people are
suspicious of joy at school.
Right, like, if we don'torganize the joy, make a rubric
(14:59):
for the joy, schedule the joy,why is joy happening, you know?
And if kids are enjoyingreading too much, it must not be
that rigorous, right it's sotrue.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, it's so true, and it really, it really is kind
of scary isn't it that?
you know, because, Donald, andas you were talking about, you
know how do we arrive at thosemoments.
I really do think of them asbeing somewhat magical and
they're really um, it's improv,right, it's, it's improvised,
it's not something that you cannecessarily schedule Like right.
(15:33):
Nobody has in their plans.
At 10, 13, you know, um, Jillis going to recommend a book to
her friend.
It just doesn't work that way.
I think that there's just thistension between what is expected
in schools and how schools areexpected to function, and
finding the space for that and Ithink that that is one of so
(15:53):
many tensions that oftenindividual teachers are working
within in their own classroomsis, you know, how do we maintain
that space for improvisationand for reactions and reactions
(16:15):
to occur that aren't sort ofscheduled or linked to a
standard or related to thelearning objective of the day?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But what we're talking about is how are the
children in front of us actuallyinfluencing the work in a
classroom?
And if there is no jazz improv,if none of that's happening,
then you're not.
When I was a new teacher Okay,I'm tripping over myself a
little here, but you're thinkingwhile you're talking.
When I was a new teacher, Iremember them talking to us
(16:44):
about teachable moments, aboutbeing good kid watchers and
reflective practitioners.
What are the kids telling usthey know?
What are they telling us theyneed?
What are they telling us theyneed next?
And one size does not fit all.
The very minute we decide we'redoing everything the same for
every single child in our care,we are making a decision to
(17:06):
leave out some kids.
Now there may be short-termjustifications where that may
need to happen in order toprovide equitable learning
opportunities for all kids, butit shouldn't be just the way we
run things.
We march through the curriculumall the kids like little
soldiers, and their lives, theirexperiences, their opinions,
their readiness, their beliefsare not considered at all.
(17:29):
That doesn't really sound likean education to me.
It sounds like brainwashing orindoctrination, and it honestly
sounds kind of boring and awfulnot just for kids either.
I mean, can we just admit thatI don't think my path to
self-actualization as a humanbeing is going to occur by
(17:50):
marching through the teacher'sguide one day after the other.
It sounds exhausting and awful.
Maybe that's just me, I don'tknow.
Maybe it does.
Don't we want education to besomething that the children
participate in, and not justsomething that is done to them?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, absolutely, and , like you said, it's not
written in the margins of theteacher's guide.
That's not how we arrive atthose moments where the true
learning happens, or those richconnections where an individual
child in our classroom is ableto connect something they're
learning with something theyknow from their past, from their
interests.
You know, those are the kindsof things that you're not going
(18:31):
to find in the script and Ithink if that is where our focus
is directed and in manyinstances I think that's where
our focus is then held bypolicies, it really does become.
I always think of it as like ingrayscale, whenever I think
about the classroom I want to bein.
It's colorful, it's lively,it's energetic.
(18:52):
There's that productive humthat happens in great classrooms
.
And when I think about where somany policies have pushed us
over the last several decades, Ido often like the image that
comes to mind is just sort of ingrayscale, right, like all of
that color is sort of drainedout and we're just sort of left
(19:12):
going through the motionswithout that joy, because you
can't schedule it.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, it is.
It is a giver.
It's like a giver with noTaylor Swift cameo.
Can I just say that it's true,it is a giver.
It's like a giver with noTaylor Swift cameo.
Can I just say that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's true, we've bled all the color out of it.
You're absolutely right, andwe've made it a joyless place in
order to systematize somethings.
Engagement and motivationdoesn't seem to be discussed as
much as it was when I was a newteacher.
And I'm just wondering I mean,it's been 20 years, of course
was when I was a new teacher,and I'm just wondering, I mean,
it's been 20 years.
Of course we know how thependulum swings, but how can we
have any conversations aboutteaching learning that don't
(19:49):
involve engagement andmotivation?
With reading, what I see is kidsare buried with goals that are
not theirs.
I mean, we pile so many readinggoals on top of kids, but if
all of their reading goals areexternal reading goals, then
reading itself is notintrinsically motivating to the
(20:09):
child.
So they've got to have someskin in the game.
I mean, even if okay, even ifsomething like letting them pick
with genres of books they read.
You know people have asked meabout this for a long time.
They, what do you do with thekids in your class that just
don't read?
And I will tell them I don'thave that many.
To be honest, you know you kindof just set the tone that this
(20:29):
is language arts class.
We read and write in here.
It's kind of what we do, it'skind of why you're here, but
sometimes you'll get to choosewhat you get to read and
sometimes you'll get to choosewhat you get to write about, and
we'll all negotiate thattogether.
You'll get to make your choicestoo.
I think that's where you canstill meet some academic goals
(20:50):
with kids but get them to buy ina little bit, because they do
have a little bit of choice.
They do have a little bit ofagency.
They do have a little bit ofautonomy.
Whether or not you're readingand writing in my classroom is
not really something we're goingto talk about in detail.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, it just is right.
This is just like you said.
It's just what we do.
This is the space where thishappens.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
No one goes to the math teacher and goes.
You know, I'm just not feelingit today, you know.
But we let them do that withreading and writing.
It just blows my mind.
You know, but you know.
But, yes, your choices and whatyou read matter just as much
here.
So I think that's the tone thatwe're setting.
But if we're not, if we're notpaying any attention at all to
(21:33):
the decline in motivation andengagement for reading
Scholastic documented this intheir kids and family reading
report, which they did for manyyears.
I wish they would pick it backup again.
It was great Survey that theydid of tens of thousands of
American school children andtheir caregiving adults, and
what they documented overdecades was what they've now
coined the decline by nine, thedrop off in kids reading
(21:57):
interest, self-reported readinginterest that starts at about
the age of nine.
And those of us who've workedin middle school we know there's
no magic pendulum where they'reswinging back and suddenly
rediscovering reading in theseventh grade without some
significant adult role modelingand support influence.
You know we have to make itsound exciting again to get them
(22:19):
back.
So what's going on with oureight and nine-year-olds?
You know, that's the questionmaybe we could all be asking,
because we're all worried thatour teenagers are not reading.
Well, how far back does it go?
According to this Kids andFamily Reading Report, the peak
years for kids to tell us thatthey like reading is eight, nine
.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Right, and I think that, particularly in the
environments where you and Ihave worked in Texas and Florida
respectively I think we've seenkind of the stronghold of
standardized, high-stakes,standardized testing has really,
I think, impacted that, becauseyou know, as soon as you say
decline by nine, what do Iautomatically think of?
Well, third grade, right, yeahme too, third grade right and
(23:06):
whether that is the causation.
There is certainly acorrelation there, right?
This is when this tends tohappen and you're right, unless
you have someone sort of showingyou the way back to a life of
reading, an interest in reading,goals and ambitions and
interests that are driven by you, you the reader.
I think there are some readerswho never pick that back up.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
There are people walking around who graduated
from high school and it was asigh of relief to them that they
never had to read another book.
You know that's right.
So and then we complain thatparents don't read and their
kids don't read.
Well, if we want reading rolemodels for our kids, I think we
need to graduate some, becausetheir parents were in our
classrooms 15 years ago and wedidn't spark a love of reading
(23:48):
with them there and now weexpect them to be phoenixes,
rising from the ashes of theirown reading failure and
discovering reading now thatthey've given birth.
It just doesn't.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It doesn't work that way.
It doesn't really work that way.
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It doesn't really work that way, you know.
It's interesting that you and Iare so quick to identify
standardized testing as one ofthe primary reasons this happens
, because I should talk toteachers and librarians about
the decline by nine in myworkshops and I will let them
just talk at their tables to tryto identify some of the things
that they think are leading kidsaway.
(24:22):
And even though standardizedtesting is always a significant
answer in the room, a lot ofpeople will tell me that it's
technology, technology.
Technology technology is thereason that kids are not reading
.
I'm like do you really thinkthat this is all the drop-off
20% drop-off that we candocument in just a couple of
years is a bunch ofeight-year-olds getting cell
(24:44):
phones.
I don't know that.
That's completely true.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
In today's day and age.
I think that there are a lot ofkids who have more or less
unrestricted access totechnology well before the age
of nine, and so I don't see thatas a strong factor.
I also think that it kind ofbegs the question as to you know
what?
Are kids, back to your word,allowed to read?
What actually counts as reading, if they're reading a news
(25:10):
article or even if they arewatching a video?
I tend to think of text andreading in a very broad sort of
sense, and I know a lot of whatwe've talked about so far is
really book-based reading, butthere are so many other ways to
read and engage with reading inthe world.
Technology does not seem likethe thing to me that would
(25:31):
interfere in this decline bynine.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, I will just say I just saw it come across my
feed today so I will goinvestigate.
But apparently there's justbeen a meta-analysis looking at
digital reading and seeing thatit is not better for
comprehension than print.
So we need to one recognizethat print media still needs to
be some of the primary textaccess that kids have.
(25:55):
The digital is not yetsubstituting for it from a
comprehension developmentstandpoint.
Let me be careful.
But I want kids to read onanything.
They will read on, and I knowkids that will read entire books
on their cell phones.
They will read them.
So we have to value all theliteracies that we're bringing
(26:16):
to the table here.
We've got family literacies,oral literacies, visual literacy
.
We've certainly got informationliteracy that you and I
probably care a lot about thesedays.
We have all the differentformats that we can access
information and entertainmentand stories from and kids.
They're largely self-taught inmost of those literacies, so how
(26:39):
can we teach them the toolsthat they need to be safe, to be
smart, to expand their ownlearning for themselves through
all the types of literacies thatthey are practicing on a
regular basis?
The definition of literacy isexpanding and even I, someone
with the moniker as the bookwhisperer am not such a Luddite
(27:01):
that I do not understand thepotential of all the different
literacies that we have.
I enjoy them myself and I thinkwe should value them with
students.
It's also another reason whythey treat print media as like a
dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Right, when that is the only thing that's sort of
shoved in their direction.
I think that it can read as adisconnection from the rest of
the world that they live in,particularly for some young
people who are very much engagedin online worlds and online
reading.
Yeah, I saw that study also,and it's definitely something
I'm going to take a deeper diveinto, because I'm very
(27:38):
interested in what theirmeasures were.
What was their criteria for thestudies that they selected?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
What equitable access did the kids have to the
technology and all these?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Right.
And also, I would wonder youknow, how is comprehension
measured?
Because I think that that's aquestion that I've thought a lot
about really since the days ofaccelerated reader and you know,
when that became such a hotidea in schools and while it did
seem to get some competitivekids engaged in reading, for
(28:09):
others it really turned them off, I think, because you know, if
their interpretation of a textdidn't match the five questions
that they were forced to respondto at the end of a book, you
book, it begs the question whatexactly is comprehension and how
do we in fact measure that in away that is valid and reliable
and meets readers where they areand where their understanding
(28:30):
of a text actually comes intoplay?
So, yeah, there are just somany, I think, complex questions
that it really does bring meback to something you stated
earlier in this idea of who doesreading belong to, and
particularly whenever we, Ithink, whenever we read studies
like that, when I know, when Ithink critically about ideas
(28:51):
like that, it brings me rightback to all of those questions
who's owning the reading?
What are we actually measuring?
So it's definitely a topic thatI think is worth pursuing for
anyone who cares about readingand understanding.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, you could get existential here.
What do we mean by reading?
I mean really you really gopretty deep in the weeds here on
the questions like this, but Ihave to ask myself, you know, if
kids are largely self-taught inthe uses of those devices and
we're seeing again and againthat the comprehension strength
on equitable measures is not thesame as it is with the print
(29:25):
right Then what do we need toteach kids about digital reading
?
That's the question I'm asking.
You know, that's what I'mthinking about.
Okay, so they're teachingthemselves and it's not perhaps
getting them where they need togo.
Are we just going to decidethat we don't need to care about
them reading on devices?
Well, of course not.
(29:45):
Look at the world that they'realready in.
So how can we teach them toread on those things better?
You know, that's what I'mthinking of here.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And how do we help them get what they need?
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah, gosh, I talked to so many librarians about AI
at the workshop I was at lastweek up in Dallas and oh, that's
another topic that's comingtowards us.
The train is coming towards us,whether we want to deal with it
or not.
So, and I think the literacyand library community is very
tangled in that conversationalready.
(30:18):
We're looking at copyright,we're looking at intellectual
property and freedom.
We're also looking at what dowe mean by art?
I mean, what do we mean by thelanguage arts?
There's a lot of turmoil in theliteracy and library world
right now and I don't think youand I perhaps knew that we were
getting ourselves into that whenwe became educators, but no, I
(30:41):
could not have foreseen thismoment, but it is a challenge.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I think there are some really wonderful
opportunities.
You know, it kind of reminds meof, you know, other sort of
freak out moments that we've hadin the world of education where
you know, there's this greattechnology, there's this
wonderful opportunity, but, wait, nobody knows how to use it
properly.
In air quotes, right, and sofiguring out what that is and
how do we in fact supportlearners to navigate the world,
(31:08):
like you said that they'realready in, I think that it does
no one any kind of service topretend that these things don't
exist or that we are going to,in some really strong way, kind
of restrict access to it.
I think instead, we have tolearn how to navigate and we
have to help young learners andreaders also navigate this world
(31:31):
, because it is definitely aworld they're going to be
growing up in and growingthrough.
So how do we use AItechnologies responsibly and in
positive kinds of ways, ratherthan, you know, just sort of
trying to distance ourselves orpretend, you know, take the
ostrich approach, like it's notreally happening?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Because it's happening, whether we want it to
or not.
The world is happening.
That's right.
I'm also looking a bit aboutempathy.
I've been reading a lot aboutthe decline in empathy in our
society that they're documenting, and of course, social media is
one of the factors that they'relooking at.
The decline of justcommunity-based social support
structures, where we're caringfor one another, is another
(32:11):
piece of it.
But we've had a couple ofstudies now that show that
reading books, particularlyfiction, fosters empathy.
Reading books, particularlyfiction, fosters empathy.
And I do feel that one of thethings that we might have done
with the influence onstandardized testing is
redirected what the goal of aliberal arts education was
(32:33):
supposed to be in the firstplace, which was to make us
better human beings.
You know, all stories are theEarth story, right, like every
single story ever written, isabout trying to become us better
human beings.
You know, all stories are theUr story, right, like every
single story ever written, isabout trying to become a better
human being, and it's this ideathat we've forgotten that piece
of it.
When we've turned reading intoa skill that must be performed
(32:54):
and measured, we've lost thetransformative part of the
conversation.
You know, terry, and I talkedabout this in the joy of reading
.
Reading is an act oftransformation.
It's not a performance andwe've turned it into a
performance and it's a skill tobe measured.
And yes, it is a skill.
Kids who are not capable andconfident readers are not
(33:16):
enjoying reading.
We were.
I don't think kids can just gomagically, go into a library and
just become readers.
That's I think I'm trying tosay.
They need our support in allthe ways that they can get it.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
They don't necessarily just absorb books
just by being in their presence.
You know, I tried that one time.
I had a hard test to study forand I slept on the book.
I'm not real sure that itactually got me anywhere.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No, no.
So of course, high qualityinstruction is always going to
be a part of the conversation,but is it high quality
instruction if the kids' voicesare never considered?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Right, it reminds me of a few things that you said
earlier.
Just, you know that readers havegot to have some stake in the
game.
How do we get them to their owngoals, rather than goals that
are sort of imposed upon them or, as you said, buried with goals
that are not theirs?
And everything we've talkedabout so far really reminds me
(34:11):
of how important it is for ourlearning environments to be
learner-centered, right, andthat is something that I think
high-stakes, standardized,skills-based kind of testing
where everything is performativeand not necessarily
internalized.
I think that those two thingsstand in stark contrast to me.
(34:32):
There's just this tensionbetween what the systems of
schools really force teachersand learners to do versus what
learning looks like, and, atleast in my view, in the last 20
years that I've spent ineducation, you know, after being
a K-12 student, that is it.
Just it reminds me that sooften our policies are imposed
(34:55):
upon education from people whodo not come from within the
field of education.
They maybe have never observedlearners in their natural
habitat or in the wild, so tospeak, and it's put teachers and
learners in just some reallydifficult, really soul-sucking
kinds of positions.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
One size does not fit all.
One size does not fit all, andkids need a reason to persist.
What's the learning for?
How is?
And again and again, they thinkthat the purpose of reading is
to complete the activities thatthey're assigned to go with the
(35:47):
reading.
The reading itself is not Idon't want to say not meaningful
, but it's not even the point ofthe reading.
The purpose of the reading isto complete reading-related
activities after they are donewith the reading or sometimes
while they're reading.
You know annotations, marginalia, all of these copying
vocabulary words we bury kidswith so much work, often just
(36:10):
for the purposes of generatinggrades.
We can't even really point toan academic reason why it's
taking place, other thanlanguage arts.
Teachers need grades in thegrade book.
So I mean and kids tell me this, and teachers tell me this, I'm
required to have X number ofgrades, so I need my kids to do
X, y, z.
And kids, why are you doingthis?
(36:31):
Well, the teacher gave us thispaper and I have to answer these
questions.
I mean, you don't need someonewith an education background to
go in and ask these questions.
The kids and the teachers willtell you these answers.
So I agree with you.
There are people who do nothave an education background who
are honestly running some ofthese conversations, I feel, and
(36:52):
it's not that they don't havean education background, it's
that they don't even care aboutasking the questions to the
people who are actually there.
And it's confirmation bias kindof stuff, where we're asking
the questions to the people weknow are going to give us the
answers that we want.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Right, Well, and, as you said, talking to teachers
and kids puts you in a verydifferent space of that
conversation than you know anecho chamber of someone else
who's designing poor policy andalso still not as valid as the
kids and the teachers themselves.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I'm not there, you know.
So I have grandchildren wholove to tell me all about their
school experiences on a regularbasis.
Right now I have a 15-year-old,a 12-year-old and a
six-year-old, so I'mrepresenting the full K-12
spectrum right now with just mygrandchildren.
And you know, as a middleschool teacher, if you have
respect with your middle, ifthey know you respect them and
(37:50):
that's what I mean If yourmiddle schoolers know that you
respect them, they will tell youeverything they will, they will
.
So it's about relationshipbuilding.
It's about really payingattention to the children and to
teachers and then justproviding the support and the
resources in order for themajority of our kids I mean,
(38:11):
really we want it to be all ofthem but for our kids to be
confident, competent readers whodon't hate it when it's all
over.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I really like those two words confident and
competent readers because Ithink that that is what helps us
to get to a place where we seeourselves as readers and where
we see ourselves as continuouslygrowing in our identity as
readers.
Yeah, I really like those twokind of key words.
And this actually takes us verynaturally to my last question
for you, donalyn.
Given the challenges of today'seducational climate, what
(38:46):
message do you want?
Teachers?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
to hear.
You may be the best reader andwriter that your students know.
Even if you don't feel that wayyourself, don't miss an
opportunity to show them what'sjoyful about it, because if you
aren't going to, they might notget it this year.
We can't control everythingthat is affecting the literacy
development of our studentsright now.
(39:10):
Would that education wasactually in the hands of
teachers and parents.
But what we can do is this Canwe make a promise to ourselves
that the students in our carewill have more positive reading
experiences this year than theyhave negative ones?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Because I think that is in our control back to what
can we do today, what can we dotomorrow in order to best serve
the young people who are rightin front of us who, as you said,
you may be the best reading andwriting role model they have,
(39:49):
and certainly you may be theperson they have as a reading
and writing role model for thelongest period during a day, and
so I think that that is such animportant message, and I think
it really does help to sort ofrecenter energy and hopefully
give us a little bit of that, alittle more encouragement to
keep on with the good work.
Yes, yes.
(40:09):
Well, donalyn, I thank you somuch for your time today and I
thank you for your tremendouscontributions to the field of
education and reading.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
I appreciate the invitation.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation and I hope it's
useful for the people who enjoyit later.
Thank you, so do I.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Donalyn Miller is known for her work as the Book
Whisperer, the title of herfirst book published in 2009.
Since then, donalyn has writtenReading in the Wild and
co-authored Game Changer, bookAccess for All Kids and the
Common Sense Guide to yourClassroom Library with Colby
Sharp, as well as the Joy ofReading with Terry Lesane.
(40:48):
With her friend andcollaborator, colby Sharp,
donalyn co-founded the NerdyBook Club blog, which provides
daily inspiration, bookrecommendations, resources and
advice about raising andteaching young readers.
Donalyn is the founder of theannual summer hashtag book a day
challenge and co-hosts, alongwith Colby Sharp, the monthly
(41:12):
Twitter chat hashtag title talk,a monthly chat about books and
reading.
From 2014 to 2019, donalynserved as Scholastic Book Fair's
Ambassador of IndependentReading Advocacy, traveling to
conferences and schools as areading ambassador, serving on
several Scholastic advisoryboards and hosting the web-based
(41:35):
teaching tips and book talkshow, the Book Whisper.
Back to the Books.
Donalyn's articles aboutteaching and reading have
appeared in publications such asGifted Child, international
Education Week, teacher, theReading Teacher, voices from the
Middle, educational Leadership,educational Leadership Horn
(41:59):
Book and the Washington Post.
In 2018, donalyn was awardedTCTLA's Edmund J Farrell
Distinguished LifetimeAchievement Award for her
contributions to the languagearts teaching profession.
Donalyn won the inaugural 2013Terry Lizane Award for
(42:21):
Mentorship and Leadership inYoung Adult Literature from the
Assembly on Literature forAdolescents, or ALLEN, a
division of the National Councilfor the Teachers of English, or
NCTE.
Donalyn Miller is anaward-winning teacher, author
and professional developmentleader who has taught 4th, 5th
and 6th grade English, languagearts and social studies in the
(42:42):
Fort Worth, texas, area.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
For the good of all students.
Classroom Caffeine aims toenergize education, research and
practice.
If this show gives you thingsto think about, help us spread
the word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing to your colleagues
and educator friends about whatyou hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
(43:06):
Visit classroomcaffeinecom,where you can subscribe to
receive our short monthlynewsletter, the Espresso Shot.
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
our drop-down menu of tags,request an episode, topic or
potential guest, support ourresearch through our listener
(43:29):
survey or learn more about theresearch we're doing on our
publications page.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Valuru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
(43:49):
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
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