One of the coolest things happened today... ok well for a teacher it's really cool! My cooperating teacher has students read different chapter books for small group reading and for one of the groups we are reading "Witches" by Ralph Dahl. I'm also trying to catch up with the reading groups and join in on their discussions. I can tell they are really interested in readying and are excited when they get to talk in the group about the book (they also get upset if time runs out for their group as well). During some of our down time at the end of the day I was reading a little more in the book. One of the girls in the class came up to me and wanted to know where I was in the book and talk about it. I was a little bit further than her and she asked me "what happens to him!" Well I understood what she meant since I'm reading the book but I told her I wouldn't ruin the story for her by saying it. It was awesome to see how excited she was and really interested in what happens next in the story. I talked to my CT about this incident and he made the comment "I would like the see the baisls do that" implying they don't really create that excitement for reading. The books are great to help students LEARN how to read the words but they don't seem to help student gain the want or need for reading. When reading the short basil books they aren't left with that 'wow, I really want to go home and read more about this' feeling. It seems that we are short changing the students when it comes to reading. They have to read the boring short stories that are required and have hardly any time to just free read. No wonder students are not doing as well as they used to when we are taking to fun out of reading. One thing I like that my CT does is he makes time to read the students a few poems each day and gives them time to free read (Which really is time used to read their group time books and complete their book reports that are do at the end of each month). In order for students to become better readers then need to read!