Rosie, I can't add anything to the list Deb gave you, but I will say one thing about this. I began my Readers Workshop several years ago after attending professional development with Sharon Taberski and Kathy Collins of Teachers College of NY. It was excellent training and I followed their language with my kids of talking about what "good readers" do. Then last summer I heard Peter Johnston, author of Choice Words. He emphasized that when we tell kids what "good readers" do, we are sending the message that there are good and bad readers and the students who are weaker readers or struggling will label themselves as bad readers. He advocated against using the phrase "good readers" so this year I have pushed myself to rephrase that as "deep readers" and I talk about what we do when we read deeply. This actually made a lot of sense to me because, as I tell the kids, I don't always read deeply. Sometimes I scan, as with the newspaper often. This approach has worked so well for me that next year I'm going to change my ant-themed classroom to an ocean theme to go with the "deep readers."
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