Teacher Book Stack

What's in your Teacher Book Stack for this summer?  I have some brand new ones and a few go-to teacher professional development resources that I like to revisit during the summer.  I just don't have the time during the school year to read and study as much as I can over the summer.  

I have always enjoyed finding teacher resources that help me sharpen my craft. We expect our students to be reading...teachers should be learners too!  And when I get to do the choosing I am much more motivated.  I also love to try out ideas that I think will help my students learn and grow! 

Disclosure: Some of the the links below are referral links, which means,  I will earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

I have more than these 4 books in my stack.  But I want to highlight these books:  three are brand new to me and one I actually got last year, but I wanted to do some rereading.

I am very excited to introduce you to this new book!  My friend, Tammy, is the author of Gatekeepers.  Tammy is also the author of the blog Forever in First.  If you have visited over at her blog, you will recognize Tammy's familiar reflective and thoughtful voice in her book, Gatekeepers.  Tammy does a wonderful job of encouraging teachers to be watchful over the teaching practices they allow into their classrooms.  Her book follows her format of Saturday Sayings, in which Tammy gives you an educational quote and then her reflections on what this could mean for her and your classroom.  She gets you thinking about what is best for your students.  

I read Who's Doing the Work last year.  It challenged me to talk less and encourage my readers to discuss and think more!  One helpful part of this book in each section is a description of what this would like like in real classrooms at different grade levels.  It was very helpful to "see" what it would look like in action.

As a teacher of mostly struggling readers, it is very important to me to develop the love of reading in my students.  Several years ago, our school was an AR school, giving extrinsic rewards to try to get students to read.  On the surface, it may seem that those kinds of rewards work- kids read, they get excited to get prizes, etc...But it doesn't seem to develop a LOVE of reading and keep them reading after the contests are completed.  You can read my post about this HERE.  No More Reading For Junk takes you through the research about extrinsic rewards and gives you ideas to replace these so your school can develop a culture of loving reading for reading!

Do you conference with your students?  I know a lot of teachers find conferencing difficult...what to talk about, how to fit it in.  But so much can be fit in to a few moments.  These one on one teachings will help you figure out what students have learned and what they still need to move them forward.  And as an added bonus, kids love these moments that are just them and their teacher!  Conferring with Readers has a lot of great tips to help you!

So what's on your Teacher Book Stack this year?

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