From: Susan Thomsen <c_spaghetti_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:04:40 -0700 (PDT)

At home, my fifth-grade boy likes to read nonfiction, comics, graphic novels--and favorite picture books. (For the record, he read and liked several Babymouse g.n.s, too!) I am glad to see that at school this year he has been reading longer fiction titles, by Jerry Spinelli, Andrew Clements, and others, all of which come recommended by his teacher, a young woman.

I do wonder, though, if the reading workshop model pushes fiction over nonfiction and other forms. As I understand it, conferencing with the teacher is an important part of reading workshop. My kiddo likes to read about nuclear energy (grade-level kinds of books), for example, but I can't imagine that this is a topic of great interest to his teacher. And one can't necessarily talk about the plot, main character, conflict, etc. Does this sort of thing factor into recommendations? The fifth graders in his school rarely go to the school library for circulation, for some reason, and the classroom library does contain more fiction than nonfiction.

Susan Thomsen
Received on Thu 22 Apr 2010 08:04:40 PM CDT