From Reluctant to Excited Readers

Jana Ellingsworth is a third grade teacher at Fifth Consolidated School in Dyersburg, Tennessee: I conducted a reading survey among the students and found that several of my students were not interested in reading whatsoever. The most prevalent reason for this was because they believed reading was boring. That next week I made it my goal to try my best to instill in them a love of reading (or at least a strong like). I found topics the class as a whole was interested in and developed lessons around them. I also began an Author Study on Tomie dePaola. We spent two weeks studying your books and the students absolutely loved it! They would come in the door every day wanting to know which book we were going to read that day.

I am so proud of the attitude change towards reading that has transpired. All of my students now volunteer to read aloud in the classroom!

Tomie: Thanks for telling me. I'm delighted!