When teachers talk about what they want for students, "a love for reading” is inevitably near the top of the list. Even as they work to ensure students' continuing progress as readers, what ignites passion more than anything is the chance to instill confidence, curiosity, and joy in students. In Reading Wellness, Jan Miller Burkins and Kim Yaris will remind you why you became a teacher in the first place. They want children and teachers to thrive as readers, to feel the deep satisfaction that comes with meaningful encounters with texts. They define reading wellness as "weaving together all the facets of our reading lives ... so that we can be our best reading selves." Readers read for relaxation, for information, and for aesthetic experience, discovering favorite books and authors and learning to choose texts. For this to happen, teachers must teach in ways that create energy and enthusiasm for reading, even as they teach to required standards.
Built around a framework of four intentions - alignment, balance, sustainability, and joy - Reading Wellness offers teachers a series of lessons that help children read closely and carefully while still honoring their interests, passions, and agency as readers. The lessons here, which have been field-tested in grades 1–5, are interconnected and empower classroom communities, are filled with anecdotes and insights, and are practical, sustainable, and frequently joyful.
Reading Wellness encourages each teacher to shape these ideas in ways that support personal ideals and goals while nurturing a love of reading and a passion for lifelong learning.
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Author Bio
Jan Miller Burkins is currently completing her sixth year as a full-time coach at Chase Street Elementary School, Athens, Georgia. She has worked as a language arts consultant for a regional educational service agency, a district-level literacy coordinator, a reading specialist, and an elementary classroom teacher. Her work as a consultant has taken her into elementary, middle, and high schools where she has helped school leaders examine their reading instruction, modeled lessons, and facilitated professional learning. In 1989, Burkins received her undergraduate degree in early childhood education from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, and in 1993 her master’s from the University of Alabama. She later earned her reading specialist certification and her doctorate from the University of Kansas in 1999. Her dissertation, which was a meta-analysis of the research on phonemic awareness, was the Dissertation of the Year for the University of Kansas School of Education and one of three finalists for the International Reading Association’s Dissertation of the Year.
Kim Yaris and Jan Burkins are the writers and thinkers behind Burkins and Yaris—Think Tank for 21st Century Literacy, where their blog and their instructional resources have drawn a national audience and made them thought leaders in the field of literacy instruction. Both former teachers, Jan and Kim are passionate about helping educators navigate, understand, and teach instructional standards without sacrificing their inner teacher. In their roles as staff developers, they work closely with schools and districts—facilitating staff development, conducting in-class demonstrations, and developing curriculum.