#eclprompt1

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Prompt 1

I have many fond memories when being read to in the classroom. I vividly remember being read ‘Horton hears a who’, I remember my friends and I loved this book! This book had many underlying life morals and taught us a lot, but also was a very enjoyable book, expanding our imagination! I personally loved how my teacher would use his voice to really set the mood for the text, always made reading time more enjoyable!

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While I don’t have any distinctive memories of being read to throughout my schooling years by my teachers, I have some very fond memories of being read to by my dad. 

From a very young age my sister and I were read to from our parents, however our father had a better taste and idea of books that would appealed to us. One of the most successful books that dad read to my sister and I were the ‘chose your own adventure’ storybooks. These books sparked my love of reading as they contained such a different reading journey from traditional books, and allowed for different reading paths to reach different endings. This easily engaged my sister and I and we would regularly discuss which choice we would make and the path we would get dad to read. As I got older dad continued to introduce me to ‘chose your own adventure books’ even though he might not have read them to me anymore, this included the Goosebumps series, as well as the ‘chose your own nightmare’ storybooks. I engaged in these types of books because they provided me with the ‘pleasure and excitement of entering into the world of the book’ (Winch et al, 2014, p.114). These books were so interactive, vivid and enjoyable; I was continuously on the lookout at the local library to get a taste of more books like this. 

These types of books can suit a range of readers, as there were varying levels of chose your own adventure books for children, adolescences, and adults. I will definitely have some of these available in my classroom to read aloud as well as for my students to explore themselves.

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Week one reflection

One memory I have of being read to in primary school was my grade five teacher reading us Hatchet (the 1987 novel by Gary Paulsen). The teacher read to us every day in the ten minutes we had to eat lunch inside, and whenever there was free time. This was one of the rare occasions that I was actually one of the people who was quiet and listening and not interested in chatting. I remember looking forward to lunch times every day to find out what happened next in the story, and thinking about it at home after school. Since I’ve gotten older it’s a book I’ve been meaning to go back and read again because I do have such a strong memory of liking it but I don’t remember all the specific details. I also remember at home my mum reading me the Harry Potter series until I was old enough to read it myself. This again was the kind of experience where I remember not wanting mum to stop reading and always wanting to hear more of the story. This series I have read again several times over the years and is something I really look forward to sharing with and reading to my own students when I am a teacher.