Fourth Grade Journey

A Fourth Grade Teacher's Journey Through the World of Books

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Disrupting Thinking by Kylene Beers & Robert Probst

How I Heard About It:  I'm trying to include more professional books as part of my daily summer reading.  I knew this was going to be the first book because of all the great reviews on Twitter and Facebook.  As I stated online when I finished, this text was a "game changer" for me.  

What It Is About:  This time around Kylene and Robert take their ideas to an another level.  The text contains ideas on how to engage our young readers and "disrupt" their thinking while reading.  The BHH (Book, Head, Heart) strategy was shared throughout the text.  Readers think about what the BOOK said, what their HEAD is thinking, and the effect the reading had on their HEART.  This is definitely a strategy I will be using with my fourth graders.  One major theme the authors discussed was how we want our readers to be changed after reading a text.  We want them to interact with the words on the page, what they know about the text, and how the text affected them.  Our goal is to create readers that go out into the world and make changes.  The writers share ideas on how to create engagement and relevance, encourage responsive and responsible reading, how to deepen conversation, and develop lifelong reading habits.  

What I Thought Of It:  I was blown away by this resource.  Once I started I could not stop reading.  I found myself highlighting so many lines while reading.  The message/theme was such an important one for all teachers to experience.  Our educational system has come a long way, but we have so much more ground to cover.  We must move forward, "disrupt" what we are currently doing, and change our practices for the better.  One element that I took most from the reading was to stress with my readers to think about how their thinking was "changed" while and after a particular reading.  There were so many ideas on how to truly have the reader "interact" with a text.  I will definitely be revisiting this book before I head back to the classroom in the fall.  

Who Should Read It:  I believe all teachers should read this book.  It would benefit a first year teacher and a teacher with 26 years under their belt; like myself.  I've already emailed me principal to share this title and suggest we get copies of our professional resource library.  Happy Reading!  

Rating:  5 STARS out of 5 Stars





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