"I Hate Reading"
Overcoming Shame in the Reading Classroom
- Justin M. Stygles - Wiscasset Elementary School
Corwin Literacy
It can take a lifetime to eradicate a reader’s shame—or it can take one great teacher
Shame-bound readers want someone to notice them. It’s true. But then what does a teacher do to help students? Justin Stygles found fresh answers in Gershen Kaufman’s seminal research on shame and applied it to his teaching. The results proved to him—and now us—that building relationships and taking deliberate actions to alleviate shame is crucial.
With this remarkable book, Stygles shows us how to build an interpersonal bridge with students and make vulnerability okay. But make no mistake—disengaged readers need to feel competent before they fully buy in, and so the author packs the book with powerful instructional ideas. Learn to:
- Spot all the distress signals, including withdrawal, perfectionism, and compliance.
- Help students see that they are not permanently locked out of a reading life
- Use assessment instruments to note and celebrate incremental change
- Plan mini-units that develop skills in concert with engagement
- Design small group experiences that are free of levels and other shame-inducing labels
- Pump up independent reading with scaffolding and sociability
- Harness writing about reading to convince students of their uniqueness.
The shame factor is real. It’s time we meet it head on, with innovation and the best thinking from multiple research fields. I Hate Reading is the tool that does just that.
Free resources
Addressing Shame in the Reading Classroom webinar
Shame-bound readers want someone to notice them. It’s true. But then what does a teacher do to help students? In this webinar, participants will learn about Gershen Kaufman’s seminal research on shame and how it can be applied to the reading classroom to build relationships, make vulnerability ok, and bring out every student’s aptitude -and appetite – for books.
Three Questions You Should Be Asking Students to Build Teacher Credibility
Whether we consider the effect size of teacher efficacy or annual state testing results, the bottom line is, if students don’t buy into our practice or the belief that they can be successful in our classroom, what else matters? Justin Stygles, teacher and author of the new book, I Hate Teaching, suggests three questions you should be asking your students to build trust and credibility with your students.
Chapter One: Disrupting Pedagogy
Learn about the ubiquity of shame, shame in the classroom, from "good readers" to authentic readers, vulnerability as a path to authentic reading, and more in the first chapter of I Hate Reading.
Introduction: How to Approach This Book
"This book is an attempt to reconsider and reexamine reading joy, reading achievement, and affective processes. It is intended to help educators understand and implement the practices I discovered that mentor students through a process of becoming engaged in their reading development." - I Hate Reading