Finally, a summary from a fifth grade group (their quotes, unedited by any adult):
To Readers Read, Want to Read, and Help Others Read...
Get rid of levels- can't we just read books that we care about and matter?
Let us talk about the books we read in groups, with other readers. Not just in the groups that are at our level.
Let us talk openly about why we do and do not like reading. When we can share what makes it hard, we have more of a chance to help one another.
Stop making reading a competition. No more points. Readers at Barnes and Nobles don't go there on Saturday because they get 50 points. They go there to meet other readers.
Don't judge people by what they can't read or do not like to read.
Let us help others read. If we had time, we could learn about what we need, and then we could help one another be better.
Let us do more reading and not more worksheets or tests on reading. We could then concentrate on the book, we might even try new books because we just want to read them. We do not want to try to read more books because we are going to have to take more tests then.
Reading helps with our future jobs. It would be great to know what kind of reading doctors or scientist do, so if we wanted to do that job we could start practicing that early.
If you want us to love reading, our teachers have to love it too. When they are exited about what they are reading and learning, we get excited to even if it is not a book we would have chosen.
Give us comfortable chairs. We know that they more we read, the better we will get. That is really hard to do at a hard desk. Have you ever seen desks like that at Barnes and Noble? There is a reason for that!
