Wrapping Up

During my last week at Scholastic, I had the chance to take part in a special event: Teacher Week. This is a weeklong series of professional development seminars for teachers, offered for free to anyone who registers. In addition to escorting speakers to and from their books signings, managing microphones during Q & A sessions, and generally helping to ensure that everything ran smoothly, I had the chance to sit in on a variety of sessions.

I’ve always loved children’s books; that’s a large part of the reason I wanted to intern at Scholastic. And those sessions showed me how important those books are in the classroom. I learned about how the rhythm of poetry can help kids build reading fluency, and about how genres that adults tend to dismiss (like romance and fantasy) help teenagers build critical thinking skills and self-awareness. In light of the growing “We Need Diverse Books” movement, one of our most popular sessions was a panel about diversity in children’s literature. Four Scholastic authors spoke about the importance of children seeing themselves and the people around them in the books they read.

Now I’m back at Holy Cross, and back at the SPUD site I’ve been with since freshman year. I volunteer in an elementary school classroom, during the English-Language Arts period. As I lead the reading groups and watch the kids read independently, the messages I heard at Teacher Week keep coming back to me.

The kids read more fluently when I show them how to practice the rhythm and cadence of the words.

Even though the teacher groans when a student selects Captain Underpants for the fifth time, he’s enjoying the book and improving his skills – and that’s what matters.

These kids deserve to see themselves in the books they read.

I don’t know where my future career will eventually lead – publishing, education, or something else entirely. But wherever I go, I know that the importance of books and reading will stay with me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2014 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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