Angela Peery’s recent article on engaged reading challenged me as a parent and a mom not to lose sight of what matters most in English language arts education: creating capable and enthusiastic lifelong readers. I want my kids to have enduring access to (and desire for) the accumulated knowledge, inquiry, and pleasure of the printed word. In short, I want them to read well and often.

As I observe my students this semester (and when I peer into my sons’ rooms), I’ll remind myself of Peery’s questions:

What does being engrossed in reading look like? What does it sound like? What evidence exists that true, engaged reading is taking place?

These questions call to mind the words of my principal at the beginning of this school year: “the classroom is a sacred space.” I want my classroom to be a place that privileges “true, engaged reading”, and I want that priority to be palpable when we open our books.

Peery draws on Nancy Atwell to identify three things we must provide to young readers: time, ownership, and response. Students need sufficient time for sustained study; they need the freedom to choose their texts and set their reading schedule, and they need a teacher to model, coach, and provide feedback as they work through their text.

In this kind of classroom, engaged reading becomes both the means and the end, and all of my instructional choices follow from that priority. Peery describes what this looks like, and in doing so articulates one of my core #teachergoals:

I responded to him as a fellow reader, not as a teacher checking off specific objectives on some kind of record of his reading achievement. When one’s teacher and one’s peers are also engaged readers, it’s hard not to partake in the community.