Hi friends! It’s officially summer break for me and I cannot begin to describe my level of excitement! I always love to have the summer to recuperate from the previous school year and plan for the next one! I also love to catch up on some professional development books as a way to motivate myself. I thought I would share my top ten favorite professional development books today. Be sure and stick around to the end because there just might be a giveaway!
The Megabook of Fluency by Timothy V. Rasinski and Melissa Cheesman Smith
I discovered The Megabook of Fluency last summer and fell in love. This is my FAVORITE reference tool for fluency. It’s full of passages that you can use in your classroom to have your kids practice fluency. It also contains strategies to use and ready to print fluency examples. It’s amazing.
This one is an oldie, but I LOVE Strategies that Work. It’s one of those books that you can just pick up and use because its filled with strategies. It’s especially good for nonfiction strategies-which y’all know I struggle with! 🙂
Two summers ago I read Reading Magic, which changed the way I viewed read alouds. If you are an upper grade teacher (or even lower elementary) and you’re worried that you’re wasting valuable instructional time by reading aloud to your kids, read this and you’ll never doubt yourself again. It teaches you the benefits to reading aloud to students. It is a classic that everyone should read.
Last summer I did a book study on Disrupting thinking. You can read the posts here. I ended up stopping with the blog posts halfway through because everything got so busy with building my house, but I did finish the book and I LOVED it! It talks about how important it is to really analyze how our students are learning and how to change your teaching when something isn’t working.
I read The End of Molasses Classes right after my first year of teaching and I remember thinking how much I wished I had read it before I started teaching. If you’re in a rut and feeling defeated or uninspired, this book will motivate you and make you want to be the best teacher ever. It’s absolutely amazing.
This book I read every single summer. This book will change the way you teach reading and make you strive to create a reader in every single one of your students. It’s amazing and brilliant and inspiring and motivating. If you pick up one PD book to read this summer, let it be this one.
Another oldie, but Comprehension Connections contains some classic lessons like the handbag drawing conclusions lesson. You will find some great ideas to use in this one. I promise!
Debbie Miller is my go to for lower elementary specific PD books. Reading with Meaning has so many great ideas for literacy stations. I can’t wait to reread it and get some new ideas since I’m moving to second grade next year 🙂
Another great one from Debbie Miller. This one has sections specifically for different important elements of a successful classroom like creating a sense of family, or making good use of your class time.
My number one favorite PD book of all time is The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. This book is FULL of simple strategies that you can use in your classroom. It’s one of those books that isn’t packed with research and other info that, while important, gets in the way of what you want to know and use in your classroom. I have a copy for home AND one that I leave at school because I was carrying my one copy back and forth so many times. It’s that good. There’s also one for writing strategies that fabulous too!
And that brings us to our giveaway! I am SO excited to work with Scholastic Professional again and share about this new PD book that shares tips and strategies from 50 expert teachers. I love how this one is broken down and how each strategy/activity is divided into sections (what, where, why, how) because it makes it very easy to follow and understand. Plus it has tons of pictures, which always helps me! The giveaway is happening over on my Instagram, but you get a bonus entry if you go to my newest Youtube video and leave a comment 🙂
Happy Tuesday, friends! 🙂
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I would suggest reading "EQUIPPED FOR
READING SUCCESS
A Comprehensive, Step-By-Step Program
for Developing Phonemic Awareness
and Fluent Word Recognition" by David Kilpatrick
It is the BEST $50 you will spend!!
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