I am in love. With a book. A very quiet book that is about to make a big noise. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller is my current favorite book. Period. It’s inspirational, practical, funny, entertaining, and a bushel basket full of other laudatory adjectives.
Why the enthusiasm? The Book Whisperer recounts Donalyn Miller’s professional journey from being an acolyte to the “experts” to becoming the epitome of the inspirational teacher of reading. Miraculously, she is able to share her insights, methodologies, and remarkable results with the rest of us. For example, her sixth grade students are expected to read 40 self-selected books during the school year. (Many of them had never before read more than one or two books – usually assigned—in a year!)
Beginning with the philosophy that everyone is a reader (She rejects terms such as “struggling” readers.), Donalyn constructs a classroom that is a sanctuary for reading. It’s all in attitude and expectations – and lots of books. Everyone is expected to read, including – and especially – the teacher. Donalyn expects conversations held during reading workshop to be on task. The students expect her to be a reader, as well. She shares recommendations with them, and they with her. I know you like horses – you should read this book. Is soccer your thing? Read this one. You’re new to the school? I’ve found a couple of books that talk about the same experience. Such are the “whispers” in Donalyn Miller’s class.
Offering alternatives to such traditional practices as the whole-class novel and comprehension tests, The Book Whisperer challenges the reader to look critically at teaching practices that may be nothing more than “unexamined wallpaper,” entrenched practices that may not be accomplishing the primary goal, that of creating lifelong readers. In Donalyn Miller’s class everyone reads. But even more significant is the fact that they continue to read after they leave the class.
I express to my students that reading is not an add-on to the class. It is the cornerstone. The books we are reading and what we notice and wonder about our books feeds all of the instruction and learning in the class. . . . By springtime, students spend about thirty minutes of our ninety-minute language arts block reading their independent books.
--The Book Whisperer, p. 50
Every teacher can be a book whisperer, and after reading this book, he will want to be. Be sure to read Jeff Anderson’s foreward and Ron Myers’s (Donalyn Miller’s principal) afterward. This book is a call to action – a roadmap to reclaiming the joy of reading. As Ron Myers says, “I challenge you to join this reading revolution, to do your part as a public school educator in the United States. Our children cannot afford our silence.”
~Iris Dodge
