One of the most exciting things I get to do as your little one’s kindergarten teacher is teach them how to read.  I hope to help each and every one of my students fall in love with books, with traveling to another place and experiencing an adventure within it’s pages, empathizing with the characters: laughing, crying, celebrating.

I have always loved reading.  I am mesmerized by the way authors craft a great story and carefully string words together to make it sound just right.  Reading teaches us new things, transports us to new places, opens up new worlds to us, shows us new perspectives, and shares people’s stories with us.  As an educator (and lover of words), it is always one of my goals to share the wonder and joy of reading with my students.  Kindergarten is an especially fun and important grade in which to do this because kindergartners find such joy in not only the stories we read, but in discovering that they can, in fact, read!  They start the year thinking, “We can’t read!,” and quickly transition to using the pictures to read independently (to approximate reading or retell stories) and then finally to reading the text.  In just these first few weeks of school, I have already seen tremendous growth in our little ones’ reading skills and stamina, and perhaps more importantly, in the joy that they find during independent reading.

The culmination of this joy came on Monday when I presented them with a gift.  Each and every student received a beautifully wrapped book, one of the stories we had been reading (and in many cases, rereading) since the beginning of school, to add to their book bins.  After feeling their presents, they guessed that they were books right away.  However, when they opened them, it was still sheer joy at seeing their old favorites, beloved and timeless stories and new alike:  Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs, Brown Bear, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Mrs. Wishy Washy, Nibbles.  They held most of their favorites in their hands, stories to read and reread, to share during reading workshop.

For the rest of the week, we focused on retelling old favorites, connecting our reading across the pages to tell one story, and matching the pictures to the story we’re telling.  Students continued to read nonfiction books as well, learning more about our world.  Their approximations of reading are sounding more like narratives and less like a factual smattering of what’s on the page.  And, they are truly enjoying reading by themselves and with partners.  They have started to become engrossed in the stories they’re reading and interact with the text in a way that they didn’t before.  They whisper the stories to themselves, laugh out loud, make faces at gross or shocking parts, and point out details to their partners.  As I sit amongst my little readers, I soak this all up because I know that they are starting to form their identities as readers and feel that, yes, “We are readers!” ​ And being a reader is one of the best gifts.  What an amazing thing to be part of.