Reading Professionally

I got an email this week from Heinemann publishers, telling me about a forth-coming book. “Ha! “ I said out loud. “I’ve already pre-ordered it!” I do love a good professional book, and I’ve got a cupboard full of them.  In fact, I make a yearly vow not to order any more, and then proceed to break that vow at least several times a year. I think reading professionally, although not to everyone’s taste, has really helped me to stay fresh as a teacher. So I decided I’d give a few of my recommendations, since not everyone wants to read long books all the time.

If you haven’t seen The Reading Teacher, and you teach elementary school reading, you are missing out. You get this magazine as part of your membership when joining the International Reading Association, and I think it’s the best professional publication devoted to reading and writing that you can find. While some issues have more that directly affects me than others, on the whole they have their fingers on the pulse of the latest research, and write in a way that is accessible. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried in the classroom as a result of an article that I read in this magazine. The cost of a membership is spendy (I think it’s about $67 per year, which I write off on my taxes), but it’s well worth it.

There are plenty of less expensive options for professional reading, though. Both Stenhouse and Heinemann, two of the top educational publishers, will often put all or part of their new books online to look at. I’ve saved a little money by reading them on my computer, taking notes on what I think I’ll use, and then not buying the book.  Ok, sometimes I buy the book anyway, but it’s nice to preview it first.

Then there are all the online options. Plenty of the people writing those professional books are also blogging, and I’ve found a wealth of information following their blogs. (See the list to the right for some of my favorite blogs.) One way I found out about some of them is through Twitter, which I lurk on regularly. I initially joined Twitter to find out more about using iPads in the classroom, so I followed people who were writing about education and technology. They would then retweet (or repost) other people in education’s tweets, and I slowly found myself broadening my Twitter scope to include other teachers, principals, and children’s book writers. I highly recommend trying Twitter – it’s free, it’s short, and you can follow up interesting links when you have the time. I know I should probably be tweeting (or posting) but I haven’t taken that step yet. I just read what other people are tweeting about, and therefore have access to speeches, conferences, and book lists that I would never have heard about otherwise.

I’ve resisted joining Pinterest, but I know that many people have gotten some great ideas off of that website. And there are probably other websites containing great ideas – even YouTube has videos you can watch that show teachers trying different teaching strategies. I think it’s important to try new things out, both for the kids and for me as a teacher. Keeping things fresh keeps everyone more interested, and for me, professional reading is the gateway to what is new. Are there professional resources that you rely on?