Reading teachers chat with Jennifer Serravallo about students reading whole books. Serravallo argues that whole books are essential for empathy, sustained attention, and grappling with complex ideas, especially amid short-form media and AI. She describes curriculum solutions she's created to help teachers and schools encourage more whole-book reading in classrooms. Listeners will learn about scaffolds to support chapter-book reading, ideas for text-dependent yet responsive planning, and guidelines for selecting diverse, engaging book titles. Find out from Serravallo how whole-book study boosts growth, efficacy, and joy in reading!
S9 E3 Whole Book Reading
Shannon and Mary welcome back returning guest Jennifer Serravallo to talk about the importance of students reading whole books. Jennifer shares what she's learned from reading research about the benefits of students' long-form reading and describes curriculum solutions she's created to help teachers and schools encourage more whole-book reading in classrooms. The conversation covers scaffolds, text-dependent yet responsive planning, and selecting diverse, engaging titles. Serravallo shares research and classroom anecdotes showing how whole-book study boosts growth, efficacy, and joy in reading.
00:35 Podcast Welcome
01:14 Meet Jen Serravallo
02:36 Why Whole Books Matter
06:38 Whole Book Resource Kits
08:43 Scaffolds for All Readers
11:29 Text-Dependent Planning
14:48 Choosing the Book Titles
18:21 Research to Classroom Practice
20:29 Teacher Audit and Study
25:35 Family Book Club Joy
31:48 Joyful Responsive Teaching
36:24 Pilot Results and Modeling
40:25 Final Takeaways
Transcript:
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9.3 Whole Book Reading with Jennifer Serravallo
Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Hey, listeners. It's Shannon. If you're like me, you spend all day giving your best to your students, and then by dinner time you're out of energy to think about prepping nourishing meals for yourself and your family. That's why I started using Green Chef again. Green Chef offers quick, flavorful, and nutritious meals that fuel my busy teacher life.
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Mary Saghafi: Each episode, Shannon and I talk about what we wish we had learned in college, what's helping our students right now, and what we're continuing to discover about how to best meet our students' literacy needs.
Shannon Betts: Because while learning to read is complex, some days teaching reading can feel even more [00:01:00] challenging.
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Mary Saghafi: Hello, and welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. We are so excited to have a returning guest. Today we have Jen Serravallo, who many teachers know and love for her amazing teacher resource books that she has provided. I think your first book may be 2015. Does that sound right? You've been doing this for more than 20-
Jennifer Serravallo: 2007.
Mary Saghafi: Oh, my goodness.
Jennifer Serravallo: My first book was, yeah, was called Conferring with Readers in 2007. Yeah. A decent amount.
Mary Saghafi: So you have been along this journey- Yeah ... basically the same timeline that Shannon and I have been teaching too, around that same time era. So, in season six a couple years ago, we chatted with you a little bit about your book the Teaching Across the Day.
And we kind of really dove into why Shannon and I really appreciate your approach [00:02:00] to working with teachers through the language in your book. And one of those reasons is really because it's organized very well. You have all of the solid foundation at the beginning of all of your books and, and how it's rooted in the research and what you should know content-wise about why we teach the way we teach.
And then what flows after that are chapters that really give voice to these invisible things that teachers do. And you, I feel like, make it very visible on the page by giving real-life excerpts of a picture this kind of scenario, and then you walk through. Well, we knew that we had a topic that we wanted to talk about, and happily it's a topic that's near and dear to you too, and that is whole book reading.
And I know that The New York Times came out with an article in about December 2025, and they revealed that high schoolers are not actually reading full books in their studies at all, and it's only an average of [00:03:00] 2.7 books throughout the entire schooling of their high school career. And so we are noticing that trend as well.
Curriculum publishers are giving less text. Shannon and I were conferring earlier about how SATs have also consolidated the words that they're expecting learners to test with. So, let's talk a little bit about, you know, what, what does this mean? Can you- can we dive right in with you?
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. Th- you're absolutely right that this is a topic near and dear to my heart.
I'm seeing it in classrooms I visit. I'm seeing it with my own children. I have teenagers. There is really a problem that we're not able to sustain attention across a whole book or that maybe we're not giving op- given opportunities for teaching for how to. It's sort of like we've just accepted that attention spans have changed, and we're just gonna be fine with that.
Like, it's totally fine that we're getting all of our content through, you know, short videos, scrolling, and we're just gonna adapt [00:04:00] our expectations in class and on college entrance exams and even college professors. I was reading something about a Harvard professor saying that they don't assign whole books anymore in their literature qu- it wasn't literature.
I don't remember what it was. But I, I, I c- I just was shaking my head. I can't believe this. This is not okay. Whole books is where, where we develop empathy, where we build the world of a story, where we connect complex ideas. It's, it's, it's not something you can get just from reading short texts, and it's irreplaceable, and it deserves a, a real, you know, c- serious spot in our elementary classrooms, our middle school classrooms, our high school classrooms.
It's, it's critical. So I'm really glad that we're talking about it today. Thanks for inviting me on.
Shannon Betts: I mean, they're the oldest, like, books, right? Like The Epic of Gilgamesh, you know, and, ... Beowulf, right? Yeah. And, like, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Like, it's what makes us... I don't know. It's like a- one of the art forms that makes us human, right?
It's these long stories.
Jennifer Serravallo: I love that [00:05:00] you said that because I feel like in this era of, in addition to the short t- form video content and diminished attention span, we're also in this era of AI, right? Where we're, you know, I just was reading this morning the, the guy that just left Anthropic saying that AI is gonna like destroy the world in a year or something really dystopian like that.
And I think that the best counter to all of this artificial intelligence is human, is to be human, right?
Shannon Betts: Creativity.
Jennifer Serravallo: Creativity. Yes, creat- it's the kind of stuff that only we can do as people, and we have to develop this as teachers in classrooms, and we have to, I think, take the most human approach we possibly can.
And one of the ways to do that is by reading books, to experience other worlds, other cultures, to walk in the shoes of characters, to understand themes and ideas that you really only can really grapple with when you're inside of a [00:06:00] novel or inside of a whole ... Even a, even an informational text. Like really understanding a topic in all its nooks and crannies, hard to do in just an excerpt or just an article.
Shannon Betts: So it seems like y- from what we know from your work, and I've owned your books for a long time, is you see a pain point, an issue in the classroom with the students, and you develop solutions for that. And, you know- Exactly. Like with your own creativity. Yeah. You know, reading and writing strategies and, you know, teaching reading across the day and things like that.
And so how are you attacking this issue? Like what have you developed to help-
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah ...
Shannon Betts: teachers and students with this?
Jennifer Serravallo: That is, that is absolutely what I do. I try to listen really hard when I'm in, in schools with, with teachers, when I'm at conferences with teachers, when I'm online talking to teachers. What is bubbling up for them?
What's the challenge, and how can I create something to help make it easy to address this challenge? So I created a resource called Whole Book Comprehension for grades [00:07:00] one through six. There are six different grade level kits with four fiction, four nonfiction whole books, a teacher's guide that gives you the research, the theory, and the practical lesson plans to teach these books, a copy of the Reading Strategies Book 2.0, which includes all the strategies you'll use in the lessons.
Vocabulary's already identified for you, background knowledge is identified for you. Student response forms that kids are gonna use to write about reading already there, printable conversation opportunities already there for you. So I try to make it really easy to incorporate these whole books into your classroom, whether it's a whole-class novel, a read-aloud small group book clubs, summer school.
Whatever it is, just get the whole books back into the classroom.
Shannon Betts: And I'm assuming this would be used as a supplement to any existing reading curriculum?
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah, I think it would probably-
Shannon Betts: It wouldn't be the whole literacy block ...
Jennifer Serravallo: it's not gonna be the whole literacy block, but I could see people that don't currently have a reading program or are working to develop a curriculum, you could build a curriculum around it.
It's not by itself a [00:08:00] curriculum, but it could be that these whole books anchor units or modules, and then you build out another collection of texts. So there's a body of research around something called conceptually coherent text. That's what I'm sure you all are aware of, right? The idea that we're trying to build knowledge carefully and strategically through concepts.
So I could see taking one of these novels, for example, and then finding collections of short texts online, video content, maybe another whole book that really helps develop the concepts that are in this book. And it could, you know, it could definitely blossom into a curriculum. But yes, right now it's a, it's sort of an add-on supplement, complement to whatever the core program might be.
Shannon Betts: What supports- I think that- Oh, sorry Mary. No, it's all right. Can I ask this real quick, and then you can have the floor? What supplements are there or supports to help the students that might need to do it as more like a shared read as opposed to- Mm-hmm ... an independent read? 'Cause, like, if you're a second or third grade teacher, even a fourth grade teacher, you might have some students that can't independently read that book.
Jennifer Serravallo: That's a great [00:09:00] question. Yeah, because these are all grade level texts, there are gonna be some students for whom this is gonna be too hard to read on their own. So the idea of doing, like, a whole class novel where maybe we all read it independently and we come together and talk about it is only gonna work in a classroom where kids can all really handle that book independently.
For a classroom where kids are reading more below grade level, they're gonna need additional scaffolding and support. So in the teacher's guide, I talk about and have videos to show how you could do shared reading, where you display the text and you're practicing, usually practicing fluency choral reading, echo reading, stopping and, and thinking a little bit about some comprehension questions along the way, even supporting decoding if that's necessary.
Or you could do close reading, again, displaying the text or a portion of the text, reading and rereading with the guidance of the teacher. You could do it as a read aloud, and you can mix up the methods. You could decide, for example, we're getting started in this new book, it's gonna be a little bit of a stretch.
I'm gonna start off as a read aloud. First three [00:10:00] chapters, maybe I'll read aloud. We'll build background knowledge, vocabulary, get the feel of the book, understand, you know, the structure of how the chapters are organized, get to know the characters. Then maybe chapter four, now we're gonna do it a shared reading.
So I'm, I'm lessening support a little bit. I'm still there, we're s- but you're gonna have to participate in the reading aloud. Maybe by chapter five, I could begin the chapter with a close reading of the first page, and then maybe with partners you could read the rest of the chapter together. So I think teachers can mix and match methods as necessary based on how much scaffolding and support kids need.
Mary Saghafi: I'm gonna just piggyback on that just a little bit because I think this is where you are able to provide this, like, flexible structure for teachers in a lot of your books, and so that's, that's what I really appreciate, especially coming from a special education perspective where I'm constantly scaffolding and trying to help all readers kind of be around the same level so we can have these conversational skills.
But I think the one question that I had was how, How is [00:11:00] it that a, a curriculum we could maybe supplement in? So, so what would this look like in, in the real... in a third grade classroom, for example? So a, a third grade teacher says, "Okay, my standard is I'm gonna be looking at character traits, and I want them to see how characters evolve over time," something like that.
Can you give, like, sort of like a little glimpse into what a third grade classroom would look like, and how a teacher might use one of these novels or kits?
Jennifer Serravallo: Sure, yeah. So I think you definitely could start with a standard, and think about the standard first, and then think about how you could teach that to that standard across the course of the book.
And in every, in every lesson, so I've divided the book up into lessons. Usually it's a chapter per lesson. I've recommended four different strategies from the Reading Strategies Book, and explained why I've selected those strategies. One for plot... for, for, for fiction, it's plot and setting, character, vocabulary, and themes and ideas.
And then for informational text, it's main idea, key details, vocabulary, [00:12:00] and text features. Those are the four different categories. So you could definitely align that to standards, and like go and just choose all the character strategies throughout. But one thing that makes this resource a little bit different is I tried to follow the advice of Tim Shanahan, who in his latest book talks about the importance of grade-level text reading, and really text-dependent planning.
And the way you approach that is you, you read the chapter and you say to yourself, "What does the text afford to the reader? What is it, what is the text giving to the reader?" Right? So maybe, maybe I don't know that much about pro- post-World War II Japan, but there's a really great setting description and background information provided in the text, so I can learn it.
That's an affordance of the text, right? And then what are the text challenges? What is the text expecting me to know that I know my kids are not gonna know? Or what is the text expecting me to be able to do that I think the kids are gonna really have a hard time with, like manage flashback and [00:13:00] foreshadowing, or pick up on something being symbolic, for example.
And then I th- I thought, so I thought about the text first, and let that drive my strategy selection. And then what I'm hoping the teachers will do is marry that recommendation with their knowledge of their students. So to say, "These are the text challenges and affordances, but I know my kids, and what my kids are gonna need most to understand this text is this strategy, or these two strategies."
And they're making a choice that's really a, a, a combination of the two. You know, I always have, I always have diff- I want to make things that are ready-made for teachers, but I also don't wanna make things that are so scripted that there isn't flexibility Because every classroom is different. You know, I travel around the country, I work with teachers every- every school context is different, every classroom is different.
When I was a classroom teacher, year to year my class was different. So what worked one year won't necessarily work the next. And so I try to make, I try to make the resources flexible, but still grounded in [00:14:00] research and grounded in theory with explanations of how to make the choices, and I trust teachers to know their students and know what's going to work best in their classrooms.
Shannon Betts: That reminds me of a phrase that I've been using since our last conversation, which was responsive teaching.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah.
Shannon Betts: That, like, that... I'm like, okay, like, all the things that I had problems with scripted, now I can, like, counter it with that phrase. Yes. Like- I mean, like, I'm a twen- I've been teaching 20-plus years, and I need to bring some responsive teaching to this moment.
Jennifer Serravallo: That's right. And it's, it's a, it's a, one of those m- we have many of these in education- Yeah ... is both/and, right? Exactly. We both- Exactly ... we both need to be grounded in the text and responsive to students, right? Exactly. It's both of these things. Yes. It's not one or the other. So it's, yes, we should look at the text- Fidelity
Shannon Betts: and integrity
Jennifer Serravallo: yes, exactly. In the moment. Exactly.
Shannon Betts: Mm-hmm. So you were mentioning, you know, that you're making these kind of text dependent. So I know you have a lot of book friends and favorite books and, like, how did you even choose the titles to include?
Jennifer Serravallo: Oh my gosh. I know. It was not easy. I mean, to be perfectly honest, you have to get certain [00:15:00] rights to be able to include books in a kit like this.
So there was, there were a, I couldn't pick any book in the world. There were limits around it had to be in paperback, so it means it's a little bit older. So it's not the one, not something that came out just last year, right? I was probably most, I, I, I think one of the things that really drove my decision-making was I wanted to make sure there was really broad representation in terms of the characters you know, racial makeup, family makeup.
I wanted to include male and female protagonists. I wanted to include a range in terms of mystery fantasy, historical fiction, realistic fiction. I thought a lot about, for the informational text, I thought about the next generation science standards. I thought about social studies standards and what are the topics that kids are studying.
And then of course I thought about what's gonna be really engaging to read, because when you're reading a whole book, it's gonna take a few days or a week or maybe two weeks, or for sixth grade it could even take up to [00:16:00] three weeks to get through the book. So it has to be really, you know, rich and interesting to think about with good themes and good character development.
So yeah, it wasn't easy to make my choices. I hope I picked well. I hope the kids love them. But yeah, lots of things in consideration.
Mary Saghafi: I am really eager actually to see some of the things that you've chose because I think that that sounds great. And I think, again, in line with the way that you tend to organize your materials for teachers, this is-- this, like, structured flexibility is really important. And I think also one of the things that you said, I just wanted to touch back on it, and Shannon I think was reiterating this, but that you have this, like, very deep professional respect for teachers to be able to make their own ability and choices for what's best for the students in their classroom.
And I do think that many teachers have feel like-- feel that that has been taken away in many regards. But you have this quote, and it's something that [00:17:00] I think about actually often, and you say, "We need to respect the science and the promising findings published in research journals while also trusting the collective knowledge that comes from our practice and experiences with children in classrooms every day."
And I think that this, in addition to the other materials that you're providing for teachers, is a really good example of, hey, I see a need here or not reading whole books as we, you know Used to previously or really just we could do so much better. How can we do it better? And I think putting the materials in teachers' hands with this flexible structure is a really great answer.
And I think that the other part that, like, really touches me is that it's so grounded in research. We, in our last episode with you in season six, we talked a lot about how you have this vast research collection of understanding. I'm sure it lives in your Google files or something. But then you're, you're really [00:18:00] putting it all together.
And I guess one of my questions is with your team and your, and the people that you work with when you go into schools, how is it that you're able to kind of like take this broad thing and apply it? Is it because you're talking with teachers all the time? Like, can you go into a little bit of details about that?
I feel like that can help our listeners maybe expand in their own communities.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. I do think it's really important to be informed by research and be aware of what new research has shown, and I, I try to stay up to date as best I can. I think there's more than 1,000 new studies published every year.
You know, that would be important for educators to know. But I, I follow, you know, researchers I trust that really bubble up certain studies, like, like Dr. Nell Duke, for example. Like, anything she re-shares, I'm sure to read. P. David Pearson, who just, who unfortunately just passed away, but he was somebody I always followed, and whatever he had to say or put, you know, put in front of of an audience, I was like, that's definitely something I wanna read the whole study.
I [00:19:00] read meta analyses, highlights you know, certain list serves that I'm part of, and, and listening to podcasts where researchers are guests. And I had my own podcast for a while where I was interviewing researchers too. So, so yeah, I do try to stay up to date. I can't read everything, but I try to stay up to date with research.
And then the, the other question is the translation of it. So it's like, okay, this is what research found in this very particular controlled setting or with this particular population of students. How does it then apply to the classroom? Yeah, and it's something my team and I think about. It's something that we puzzle over with teachers, and we're in classrooms with teachers trying things.
And, and I, I think that quote you shared just shows how I regard that work as research too. Like, the work of actually trying to implement research, trying to translate it, trying to make it practical, it, it means that we're researchers too. We're gonna take the finding, the essence of the finding. We're gonna try something.
We're gonna notice what happens. We're gonna adjust and [00:20:00] revise, and we're gonna try something else. And I think that's what the best teachers do every single day. So this idea that, you know, research is more valuable than what teachers are doing every day, I don't think it's true. It's another both and, right?
Informed by the research but also make sure that we're, paying attention when we try things in our classroom and making adaptations and adjustments when something doesn't work r- well, and reflecting. Like, why didn't it work so well? What can we try instead? There's so much learning and there's so much research in that as well
Shannon Betts: I'm thinking of classroom teachers listening, and I'm thinking back to my own years when I was a homeroom teacher.
And let's say teachers just, they're waiting for their school to purchase a curriculum or whatever, and it's not there yet. Like, what could they do and w- h- how could they kind of gauge their own instruction through this lens of whole book, and then, you know, make some, some adjustments and some tweaks?
'Cause I'm thinking, okay, first question they could maybe ask is, am I reading aloud a chapter book? Which that was sort of non-negotiable [00:21:00] from my first year of teaching on. And when I hear from former students who are adults now, you know, they... Like, like when the movies would come out, they were like, "Oh my goodness, A Wrinkle in Time movie came out," you know?
They message me on Facebook about it. And the BFG came out. And they remember that's moments on the carpet more than anything else. So to me, that would be step one, is a teacher at least exposing chapter books that way. But then what else could teachers ask themselves about, and then make some changes to their instruction to get the students more engaging with these longer texts?
Jennifer Serravallo: Hmm, that's a great question. So I think, yes, I would, I would maybe just do a little audit, like when and where do whole books, fiction or informational texts, where and when do they show up across my day? In the ELA block, but also in content areas. They should be reading books in content areas, too, right?
And then how, like of the books that I'm reading that are whole... Well, if there aren't any whole books, like, how can I at least get one in this year, right? Let's start there. And maybe it's through read-aloud, which would be a really [00:22:00] joyful... Like you said, it's community-building. I still remember sitting on my, on the rug of my second grade teacher, Ms.
Nichols, and listening to James and the Giant Peach. I'm not young.
Shannon Betts: Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Jennifer Serravallo: Exactly. Fourth grade. Yeah.
Shannon Betts: 1980-something.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yep. These are, these are core memories. Like how can we not do this, right? So maybe that's, that's the first step, is to try to read aloud to students. I would say try to incorporate some strategy instruction into that so it's not just a story time, but it's an instructional time where you're thinking aloud in front of, in front of the students about, "Oh, wow, the character really acted differently here.
That must be an important part to think about." You know, "Oh, now I'm thinking she's this way or that way. And in the next chapter, are you getting any new ideas about the character? Turn and talk to your partner." Right? So teaching a little bit to get them thinking a little bit more deeply, not just reading it to them would be a great first step.
In some classrooms, there might be whole book reading happening that's more like drop everything and read time or sustained silent reading time, where it's really a text that kids [00:23:00] select for themselves, and they're able to read it on their own, which is great, but if you read... If you look at Shanahan's research, he would say you don't want to spend too much time on that just right reading, that really comfortable reading.
Kids really do need access to grade level- whole books. They need grade l-- I don't know if the key says whole books, but I'll add that in. Grade level texts, right? Grade level whole books. And so the teachers might reflect, like, where and when are kids doing that, especially if I'm working with kids who are t- not typically developing readers.
I'll share, just 'cause you asked about research earlier, I'll share just one study I came across when I was researching for this resource. It's a study by a researcher named Westbrook in the UK, and he and his colleagues replaced middle school it was a middle school classroom, or a couple middle school class- maybe a dozen, two dozen middle school classrooms at middle school, and they had short text only reading, and for six weeks they replaced it with whole books.
And ac- across those six weeks, the more [00:24:00] typically developing readers did probably like what a whole class novel would feel like, you know, like, like from our childhoods. We, you know, they read it together, they read a little bit independently, they got together, they talked about it. The kids who were a little bit, need a little bit more support got extra support in the form of background knowledge, vocabulary, strategy instruction, voiceover helping them to kind of, you know, make their way through it.
Six weeks is over, and they measured the students' growth and achievement. Right? They were able to get between 30 and 64 weeks of growth in just six weeks based on replacing short texts with whole books, and the kids who were the most struggling readers had the biggest gains. They also reported not only did the kids' skills improve dramatically, but they also were able to increase their efficacy.
So the kids were like, "I am a reader. Wow, I did it. I, I read a whole book." Right? And that's, I think, a big hurdle, and something else that we're facing right now is, like, books? Who reads those? Like, I, I, I, you know, I'll spend hours on Instagram or [00:25:00] TikTok, but I'm not gonna read a book. I think that, that efficacy is so critical, and, you know, p- who is it?
Afflerbach, Peter Afflerbach talks about this in his book Teaching Readers, Not Reading. He talks about these skills like efficacy as being critical pieces in developing a reader. They're not the standards, right? But if we don't help kids feel like they can do it, have some motivation, engagement, desire to do it, even if we do these beautiful lessons, they're not gonna continue doing it without us there.
So I thought that study was really eye-opening and impressive, and a great case for why this, this really needs to happen in classrooms.
Mary Saghafi: I'm gonna share a bit of a personal story if that's okay because I think it relates. And I had something else to say earlier, but I think this is way more powerful.
So over the summer, just as a fun activity for our family and friends, I've been a part of a longtime book club with friends. We love discussing a variety of books. And so, one of the parents had asked if I could start a kids' book club, and so it's just the same people at our book club, [00:26:00] their children are a part of it.
And so, I really pushed that it's summertime, audiobooks are a great option especially if you have multiple kids at different ages or, you know, you're just reading it at night, that's also okay. The kids can read it independently. But, like, let's just say all of these are the best reading options, and we all do it, and we model it for our kids.
Point blank. So we read A Wolf Called Wander, and I had just sort of talked with my kids about it, and they're like, "Can we do a party?" And we ended up kind of using AI to generate some great ideas and stuff. But then when the kids ended up coming into our house, my kids were so excited about it. They gave everybody a little name tag, and it was like, "Here's your wolf name."
And they came in, and that little spark of joy, you know, they, like, walked to the, across the river, which was just, like, a piece of tape down to our basement stairs, and they went down the stairs and down the mountain. So just, like, little ideas like this. But I thought that the fun and the playing part was [00:27:00] going to be the part that the kids enjoyed the most, and they did.
But then I had just kind of got a few little questions, maybe 10 questions from the book, and we gathered the kids down, just like sitting on the carpet at school, and I couldn't believe how enthusiastic they were because it was the ownership that they felt about this book at their first book club event, and how everybody had read the same text.
And it was shocking to me because I think that when I put my teacher hat on, I know how, you know, meaningful and motivating it is. But putting a parent hat on and putting a fun hat on, you know, just for a party aspect, it made this text so valuable to the kids. They could not stop talking about it, and it was so exciting.
It was so fun. And so, I think that sometimes when you are keeping your teacher hat on, and it is that grind that you're constantly trying to get through and burn through all of the texts that you [00:28:00] can you lose that magic. But the kids don't lose that magic. Like, just a little opportunity, they will take and run with it, which I think is so cool.
But some of them had said this was the first long book that they had ever read Which was so cool. So cool. And now they wanna know what the next one is.
Jennifer Serravallo: So- I love this so much, and I, I'm just curious to know, selfishly for my own-
Mary Saghafi: Yeah ...
Jennifer Serravallo: parent hat and trying to get my own kids back into books, did you get pushback from anybody?
Like, or were the parents just like, "This is what's happening, it's a non-negotiable," or were the kids- Some
Mary Saghafi: of them were like- ...
Jennifer Serravallo: excited from the beginning? Yeah ...
Mary Saghafi: yeah. It was a mix, just like you would have in a classroom, right? It was a mix. And there were a couple kids who were really like, "No." I had one friend who texted me to the side and said, "So-and-so read it, but she really didn't like it.
It was really upsetting. There were some parts... And she has a really tender heart. It was not her favorite." And I had just said, "Some books in book club are like that," 'cause that's how we experience them too. So I think that the great [00:29:00] part was parents had that ability to talk about how they were going through the books.
And yeah, sometimes it's just a dud, and we talk about why it's a dud and why we don't like it. And so that part is cool. But there were a couple-- there was two kids that didn't read the book but came anyway, because that also happens in book club sometimes . You know? Sometimes you don't get through it.
And that's okay. But then they were motivated to read it again. And I had shared that in our house, like, during bath time is when we tend to listen to an audiobook version of whatever book we're listening to, and it's just that, like, background kind of thing that's going on. But they're so invested in it, and it's special for them.
So g- I think when parents are able to come together and honestly talk about, "Hey, this works for us. Maybe give this part a try," or, "Oh, this is how we do it and it's working well," having that, like, big, open, honest discussion is great. And it's kind of the equivalent in my book to, like, going across the hall and being like, "Hey, do you have any suggestions [00:30:00] for making this one fun?"
Or, "Oh, you won't believe what our lesson was like today." So I think that you know, as you kind of get the momentum going for a book or some, some sort of challenging text, then you really persevere through it, and kids start to feel like, that, like, grown-up sense of self. Like, "Oh, I'm growing up. I have the ability to do something that was hard, and I'm persevering through it."
You know, the efficacy part that you were speaking to.
Shannon Betts: I see it too as, like, you're developing a reading identity. You know? Yes. Like, the more you read, you know, try certain chapter books, try certain styles of text, then you learn your preferences. And, like, that one student who didn't really like it or that child who didn't like it as much, that already is valuable information to her own reading identity.
Mary Saghafi: Yeah. Yeah, like, oh, I don't- I'm, I'm a little tender-hearted. If people could give me a little heads-up that something, you know, upsetting might happen then, then I'll just be aware of it, at least I know that it's coming. And she's-
Shannon Betts: She likes [00:31:00] HEA, happily ever afters books.
Mary Saghafi: Well, a little bit. I think she also felt that way with The Wild Robot when she read The Wild Robot, too.
And, and I think that that's sweet, but then it also kind of informed us, too, that, like, the next book that we're gonna do is gonna have a totally different theme. So we're doing Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library, which is really fun. It's kind of like Willy Wonka in a library. It's the... I think that's a good, like, analogy for it.
So it's, it's a different style. But I also think that giving kids the, that identity to be the r- be a reader, be a part of a book club, be a part of, you know, a class of very astute readers is, is essential. If I can slide in my second comment or question.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah.
Mary Saghafi: I was you know, rereading your book, The The Teaching Through the Day, and Teaching Reading Through the Day.
And there was an excerpt of a teacher who was reading about dung beetles. And [00:32:00] so she's teaching a lesson, and they're looking at informational text, and I think that this, like, theme of joyfulness that kind of goes through. The author has the perspective that the dung beetles are actually quite beautiful and miraculous, and c- they can do all these things.
There's lots of great rich language, and there's lots of pieces within this, like, kind of vignette, this scenario, where the teacher is like, "Turn and talk to your partner. Why do you think they said waste, dung, poop?" And, like, kind of other, like, descriptive words and things like that, and the kids were so excited, and you could just tell that.
I think that that spark does happen, but it happens when you're prepared with a response. And so I think that, you know, you have to have this, like, flexible planning. You can't go in not knowing what the text is. You can't go in just hoping to spur a moment of something if you're not really prepared with that language.
So, I think that the great news about having [00:33:00] books prepared, one, gives the, the resources to teachers within these kits, but I love that it's paired with the book that you have that actually has, here's the teacher language that's useful when you're in this situation. That's what I wanted to share before.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. No, I think it is... it's critical that you read the book. It's critical that you pull out, I think, the kinds of things that kids are gonna need support with, be it background knowledge, vocabulary, figurative language. You've thought a little bit about that and thought through the strategies they might teach.
But it's also important to leave a little bit of room for, oh, I wasn't expecting kids to react to that or respond to that. I'm, I'm also comfortable to pivot. But I think the way a teacher gets really comfortable being very responsive is through a lot of thoughtful planning at first. Like, I feel like my first lesson plans when I was a first-year teacher were very detailed and elaborate, and over time they've gotten slighter and slighter and slighter as I've gotten to be a better teacher, right?
So you need that planning, but then you also need to build in space, and, and with [00:34:00] experience you get more comfortable responding and reacting to.
Shannon Betts: Mary, I like that you brought up the joy piece, 'cause I wrote that when y'all, you were telling that story about the children's book club. And even thinking about that s- study from Great Britain, like, I can't imagine the drudgery of six weeks of just sort of like every day reading a short article, like two-page article, and trying to every kid follow along and read it, and like doing that day after day after day would feel like drudgery to me as a teacher, and I th- definitely would feel like torture as a student.
Versus being immersed for six weeks in like rich chapter books with exciting things that happen to characters and you can, you know, you can react to like, "Oh my goodness, look what happened." And then, you know, you get to the end of the chapter and there's a cliffhanger, and you're all brainstorming what's gonna happen next when we pick it up, you know?
And the groans that happen with the students when the reading time is done. Like, th- we don't talk about that enough, of like the joy, you know? And that it can actually be fun. I mean, [00:35:00] sometimes when I was in like certain periods of like when the pendulum was swinging, you know, in education, and like I would have to like kind of hide my read-aloud time.
And y- you know, in the time when like nobody was gonna be coming by my classroom and, and catch me reading aloud, you know? And I'm trying to think where I'm going with that. But it was always my favorite time of the day, and We would, we w- nobody's gonna measure that in, like, in an, an assessment of a teacher, you know, or any kind of administrative assessment that they come by and they look at your instruction and things like that.
But to me, it's such a huge community piece. It's such a just enjoyment of our jobs as teachers and as students. I just don't think we talk about that enough, and-
Jennifer Serravallo: Absolutely. Yeah. No, absolutely. And what we do talk about a lot is engagement and how it's, you know, a lot of people are saying, "Oh, the kids' heads are on the desk.
They're bored to tears," with the... Absolutely that matters, right? If, if you're not engaged in something, think about [00:36:00] anything you've learned how to do. It's gonna be harder to pick up new skills if you don't really care, right? And so if, yeah, maybe it's an intangible. It's not something on an observation checklist.
Maybe it's not measured on the state test. But absolutely, we, we create conditions for real engaged participation. The kids are gonna enjoy school more, and they're going to pick up more skills. So I think it's absolutely worth thinking about.
Shannon Betts: But I think- What changes have you seen as you've, like, kind of been working on this project and, like, implement it, you know, in the schools and students that you work with?
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. The, some of the people that have piloted it have said, like, there's one teacher that piloted it with a small group of students who were actually above grade level readers, and they were in a core program that has all excerpts. And she said they would literally run down the halls in her room to read this whole book.
They could not wait, right? I, I think that that, yeah, like what, like where did we go wrong when we got rid of books? Yes. Yes, there's joy in books, and there's a lot that can be learned from [00:37:00] books. So, I, I hope that that kind of joyful contagion finds its way back in.
Mary Saghafi: I was gonna just add one more because yes, there's so much joy in books, but also there's joy in the learning part, and I think that that's the other piece that you're providing is like, hey, it's not just gonna be spur of the moment read-aloud where the teacher hasn't pre-read the text.
It's this is really intentional and curated, and I'm gonna be enthusiastic about it as well as the teacher, and that, you know, goes along with how the kids are gonna feel about it. But I think that that hand-in-hand with this is the strategy and this is what's happening, my response as the teacher can be this, and you provide those examples, and that's, I think, where, like, the rubber meets the road, right?
We know that the research says, yes, this is important, but how does that happen in the classroom? It happens with this particular type of language. We are sharing, "Let's [00:38:00] turn and talk to your partner about that." Okay. Mm-hmm. As they were turning and talking, I heard some great ideas about what the main idea of the story was.
I heard this theme, and I heard this theme or et cetera. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So I think that's, that's the critical piece.
Shannon Betts: One of the things I always model for my students is I remember reading My Side of the Mountain myself when I was in fifth grade, and I always, It has that little, like, hand-drawn, like, doodle map in the front, you know, of the mountain and all the places that he went to, like the cattails and things like that, and I would pull out that book when I was encouraging students to move from level books to chapter books, and I would show them, like, when I read this when I was a kid, I...
You know, every time he would go to a new place, I would flip back to the front of the book and see that map, and it helped me so much to know where the character was going. And I think that we can show the students those practical strategies through those books, and then, then encourage them, like, those are transferable skills that they can apply to any book, which is cool.
Jennifer Serravallo: Absolutely. Yeah. I just wanna point out, you know, I think this is probably [00:39:00] gonna be an audio-only podcast, but for people that aren't getting to see your faces when you're talking about these memories of sharing books with kids, this is another really important reason to do it It's fun for the teacher, right?
It's engaging and fun for the teacher, and don't we all deserve this right now? I feel like teachers have been cr- their creativity's been stifled. They've been, you know, bashed in the news. What- it's just not fair, right? And we deserve to bring some joy and some engagement for ourselves 'cause it's contagious, right?
The kids will feel it too. Yeah.
Shannon Betts: Okay, another story. This is from, like, years ago when I was first teaching, but I really loved the books Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophia Kinsella. And I kept a reading log along with the students, and I would show them you know, what I was reading, and I brought in those books and, like, they got so into...
Like, I'd be like, "Okay, this is Becky Bloomwood, and I feel like she's my friend, and she overspends, and then she gets the credit card bills, and then she's like, 'Ah, why do I keep shopping?' And then I keep shopping." And even the male students in my third grade class, you know, like, [00:40:00] would go, "Well, how's Becky doing?"
Like, we would talk about her like a first, you know, like a real person, and they were more interested in my reading life sometimes than in their reading lives. At least, that was what I needed to do to get them excited about it.
Jennifer Serravallo: Mm-hmm. I love that. Yeah. I think we all need to model a love of reading and then also give kids the tools for how to do that and experience that themselves in the classroom as well.
Mary Saghafi: This has been a great chat. I can't wait to you know, see the materials, share some more with other teachers, and check back in with you when you have another amazing thing to- ... share with teachers.
Jennifer Serravallo: Thank you both. Thank you. It's always so great being in conversation with you.
Shannon Betts: Yeah. Likewise. Is there any last message you wanna give to teachers while we have you on air?
Jennifer Serravallo: Mm-hmm.
Shannon Betts: I'm, I'm catching you off guard.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah, nothing I can think of offhand. But no, just thank you so much for the opportunity to connect with you.
Shannon Betts: Try longer books- Yeah ... with your students.
Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah, that's right. Bring books, bring books back. That's a good final message.
Mary Saghafi: Love that.
Shannon Betts: We appreciate- Thanks so much
the work that you do and that you [00:41:00] follow the movement and the trends, you know, of like, I don't want to say trend, that's the wrong word. You know, but like patterns that you see that are happening good and bad in classrooms, that are positive and negative in classrooms, and where we wanna make some shifts.
And then you, you create the solutions for the pain points, which I appreciate.
Jennifer Serravallo: Thank you so much.
Shannon Betts: That's why I refer to all your resources so much, 'cause they've helped me in my own practice.
Jennifer Serravallo: Mm-hmm. Thank you. I appreciate that.