Reading for Pleasure

Teaching Pre K-8, Apr 2006 by Bafumo, Mary Ellen

Best Practices

Use the books on your own reading list to enrich the subjects you are teaching to your students

In a time when fewer people are reading for pleasure, educators remain die-hard readers of every genre. That's no surprise. Most of us entered the field because we love to learn. What we've discovered is that by connecting our reading to our teaching, we can read for pleasure and enrich the subjects we share with students. Being able to provide an anecdote about a famous person, background on an event or era, or display a photo from a book or share a divergent perspective from a text, can make a significant difference in student interest.

What's new?

There's never been a better time to enjoy your favorite genre and make it part of your teaching. Whether you like classics, biographies, novels, poetry, science, politics, children's literature or other topics, excellent books abound and are often lavishly illustrated.

If you want to know what's new and what's best in books and media, go to and bookmark www.ala.org, the site of the American Library Association (ALA). Each year ALA publishes the "Top of the List" winners on its website. These are selections from the Editor's Choice awards in all categories for readers from children to adults. Booklist magazine, ALA's review journal, offers the full list of winners each January in an annotated format. The website is just full of information about books and other media and is truly a wonderful resource for teachers.

So many good books, so little time

When revisiting the classics, check out the Barnes & Noble "Classics" series. These unabridged paperbacks cost under five dollars. Whether you read Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy or Herman Melville, you can glean vital information about social customs and roles of men and women for comparative discussions about current versus bygone eras.

Should biographies be your favorites, there are a host of superb ones available. They provide unusual details about people and society that will enhance social studies and other topics. If you like well-researched history that reads like a novel, try H.W. Brands' book, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (Anchor, 2002). We celebrate Franklin's 300th birthday this year and this biography is a real treat. Teaching about the American journey to nationhood? Read Brands' newest effort, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (Doubleday, 2005).

History's stories

Doris Kearns Goodwin, another historian who writes history like the excellent story it is, illuminated Abraham Lincoln's life and times, including his extraordinary Cabinet, in her new book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, 2005). If your interest runs to wartime America, don't miss her earlier, Pulitzer Prize-winning book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (Simon & Schuster, 1995). Students accustomed to easy availability of consumer goods may be surprised to hear about rationing during WWII. Those who take for granted having women in the workplace, will learn that WWII was the impetus for women joining the workforce in large numbers.

Enjoyable reads

Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Gotham, 2004) is a winner for teaching punctuation. It's an enjoyable read, too. In her new work, Talk to the Hand (Gotham, 2005), Truss takes on the dearth of manners and civility in society and manages to infuse the topic with some humor. This content also applies to classroom society. Erich Krauss' Wave of Destruction (Rodale, 2005) documents the plight of survivors of the tragic tsunami of 2004. Time Magazine's Hurricane Katrina: An American Tragedy and Its Aftermath (Time, Inc., 2005) illustrates in photos and text the hurricane that so drastically altered several southern states.

Old favorites

With the wonderful film adaptation coming out on DVD April 4, it's time to dust off your copy of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2004, reissue) and reread the series. Where can you fit in references that will engage your students? It's necessary to know children's books and films and to be able to recommend them to parents.

Be sure to consider ways in which books from your reading list can amplify the topics that you teach. If you don't have a reading list, it's time to enrich your own repertoire of knowledge by creating one and connecting your reading to the classroom.

Mary Ellen Bafumo is a Program Director for the Council of Educational Change, an Annenberg legacy group. E-mail: bafumome@aol.com