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Your Teacher Summer Reading List – 2018
posted by: Melissa | July 17, 2018, 08:11 PM   

People who don’t teach, sometimes make snide comments about educators having the summer off. They have little understanding of the hectic pace of the school year and how little time there is for teachers to actually pause and reflect on their teaching techniques or explore new methods. In this whirlwind environment, the summer is a necessity. It allows teachers the time they need to catch their breath, do some personal reflection and assessment and find out what is new in the field of education. And for the teacher who is unsatisfied with the way they’ve been doing something – it’s the perfect time to change course  and try something new.


An integral part of this process is reading. Educators are some of the most prolific readers and each year brings a bevy of new books aimed at helping us reframe our work and inspire us with new ideas. Many of these books are written by teachers. They include everything from inspirational stories and “ah-ha moments” to gritty manuals on how to handle day to day situations. Predictably, some of these books will resonate more than others. So, which books should you crack open this summer?


Our selection below contains books released in the past year or so. Each one has been making waves in the education world because of the issues they delve into or the new and innovative ideas they contain. Whichever ones you choose, we hope these books will help you stretch, grow, and look at the world in a new light. Enjoy!


  1. "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity by Beverly Daniel Tatum
  2. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique Morris
  3. Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
  4. The Wild Card: 7 Steps to an Educator's Creative Breakthrough by Hope and Wade King
  5. Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Robert Probst and Kylene Beers
  6. It Won't Be Easy: An Exceedingly Honest (and Slightly Unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching by Tom Rademacher
  7. Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning by John Spencer and A.J. Juliana
  8. Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play by Mitchel Resnick
  9. Joy Write: Cultivating High-Impact, Low-Stakes Writing by Ralph Fletcher
  10. A Novel Approach: Whole-Class Novels, Student-Centered Teaching, and Choice by Kate Roberts
  11. Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby
  12. Know and Tell: The Art of Narration by Karen Glass
  13. The Curious Classroom: 10 Structures for Teaching with Student-Directed Inquiry by Harvey Daniels
  14. The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads by Daniel T. Willingham
  15. From Striving to Thriving: How to Grow Confident, Capable Readers by Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward

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