I Am Reading: Nurturing Young Children's Meaning Making and Joyful Engagement with any Book

by Kathy Collins, Matt Glover

It's vital that we support young children's reading in ways that nurture healthy reading identities, that foster an attraction to books and a love of reading, and that teach them how make meaning in any text they choose, whether or not they can read the words. -Kathy Collins and Matt Glover

What do we see when young children interact with books before they can read the words?

Kathy Collins and Matt Glover see real reading, characterized by purposeful meaning-making and opportunities for reading growth and language development.

"One of our biggest hopes," write Kathy and Matt, "is to help you see and value all of the powerful work young children do as readers." With I Am Reading you'll see that fostering what little ones do before they can read the words is important early instruction.

Kathy and Matt show how to nurture, nudge, and instruct young readers to make meaning in any text, whether or not they are reading the words. They share: observation guides for children reading any kind of book specific descriptions of language and independence development sample reading conferences and whole-class minilessons suggestions for creating reading opportunities in preschool and reading workshops in K-1 action plans to get you going 25 online video clips of children making meaning and teachers supporting them.

I Am Reading pairs two important voices in early literacy to remind us that we're teaching children, not reading levels. "In the rush toward ever higher reading levels in the early years," write Kathy and Matt, "we may fail to value the strategy use and high-level thinking children do before they are reading conventionally." Join Kathy and Matt and look anew at your young readers so you can provide the kind of support that gets them off to a great start.

Genres: Education, Professional Development, Teaching, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2015

Reviews

[Susanna Hargreaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great resource for reading specialists, educators, librarians, and parents. Loaded with ideas to invite and inspire kids to find the joy in reading. Geared toward young children. However, It has many great tips and helpful dialogue and validation to nurture students of all ages. There are also interactive video clips and positive examples. The layout is great and easy to quickly refer back to. It is a positive educational resource for my professional library.

[Cathy Heinsohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely meant for younger students. I didn't feel like this was a strategy book as much as just great things to keep in mind. A prek teacher will find a wealth of information on how to get prek students engaged with text.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ideas to keep in mind for beginning readers! I loved the videos that accompany this book.

[Mandy Robek · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is geared for early primary, I found nuggets helpful for working with second graders. Lots of suggestions for language nudges and looking at language readers use while learning to read books.

[Christina Meleo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In hindsight, this is not really a book to read cover to cover. I wish I'd held onto it strictly to refer to as needed. I'll still do that, but it was dry and a bit repetitive to read in full.

[Kristin Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repeats itself a lot. Some of the info goes against other research.

[Kristin Jolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! Kathleen Collins gave great details and examples on how to help young readers enjoy books while building self confidence (SO important), even when they can't read the words of a story quite yet. I think she is absolutely right in her opinion that children need to be given MANY opportunities to listen to reading as well as "reading" on their own (in this case that would mean using the pictures to guide their reading). Anyone who teaches PreK, Kinder, or first grade should definitely read this book.
My only negative comment, hence the four stars instead of five, is that some chapters were basically a repeat idea/concept of a former chapter. She would spend many paragraphs repeating things, or her personal opinion, that she had already talked about instead of just jumping into the next chapter.

All in all it was a fantastic read and one that I believe all ECE literacy teachers should read and use in their classrooms.

[Diana Pettis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this should be a must read for any educator working with children preschool to grade 1. There were so many great ways to work with children of all abilities and tips for building life-long readers. I loved it!!!
Pat and Kerry and Kate and Jen and Carol (You would love it!)

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and easy to access. Love the combination of written explanations and matching video clips. Provides many methods and strategies to try in ECE. A must read for prek-1 teachers and can be very helpful for those teaching language learners.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just fantastic! I wish I would have had this book when I taught preschool and kindergarten. Plan to use many of the ideas with my preschool-age grandsons. Just excellent!

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for every teacher and parent of young children.

[Jillmaclean1980 · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very interesting for me as a teacher...it's a work book though not for pleasure

[Christy Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Am Reading is a must read for anyone working with young emergent readers!

[Denese Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read for early childhood teachers!

[Doni]

This book has an interesting way of integrating videos of children reading to demonstrate the various levels by providing QR scan codes. Despite this, it was difficult for me to discern distinct variations between some of the levels. I wish they had provided more advice about teaching tips rather than focusing so much on building their system.