Name: Disrupting Thinking
ISBN: 9781338132908

Robert Probst

Kylene Beers

Supported with student conversations, classroom scenarios, practical strategies, and turn-and-talk moments, teachers and administrators can use this book as a guide for changing the way they think about teaching students to become thoughtful, skillful, attentive, responsive readers.

Why How We Read Matters

Disrupting Thinking

Melissa Palmer

Book #53 Read in 2017
Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst

This was a decent professional read. It was a little text booky (Donalyn Miller is still my favorite!) but it was full of good information about how making reading meaningful to and for students is so important. Letting students choose their reads, making what they are reading relevant to them are key components to building a successful reading community in the classroom. I enjoyed it.

Nadine 

Possibly one of the most readable and relevant books I've read professionally lately. 
Talks about critical (as in THINKING) reading both for fiction and nonfiction and nicely summarises their previous works, Notice and Note, and Reading Nonfiction. It would definitely be a book I'd encourage all teachers to read, and then depending on their need / interest delve further into the other works of the authors.

As a teacher who is tired at the end of the day but still wants to get in 20 minutes of reading I really appreciated that the sections could each be read and absorbed in roughly 20 minutes and combined practical elements, stories from the classroom and solid research. 

Only gripe would be Chart G which obviously wasn't checked / edited properly since the percentages are not in line with the bar graph, and Chart I which while looking impressive just doesn't make mathematical sense no matter which metric you try to pin on it. Which means I'll have to go back to the source and try and see why they've presented it the way it's presented.

Jeni Enjaian

Once again, I wish that goodreads had a half star feature. If they did, I would rate this book 3.5 stars because this book is, in my opinion, slightly above average but not quite four star level.

I received this book from the Title 1 ELA specialist at my school on our planning day. I have heard really good things about both authors and their work in the literacy field. I found a lot of value from this book but in the long run it fell short. I started to become disillusioned about halfway through when in one of the chapters, Beers describes a detailed writing frame she gave a friend of her college age daughter to help this friend through freshman college classes. This type of text analysis drives me bonkers and seems to be the exact thing that promotes "Readicide," as described in Kelly Gallagher's book of the same name.

Other times Beers and Probst hit the nail smack on the head when it comes to how reading should be promoted and structured in schools. I loved those sections, especially the parts where they advocated for students in challenging socioeconomic circumstances.

In the end, the lack of concrete details as well as an inconsistent commitment to true "Book Love" make this book an average read for me and one that I may not keep in my collection long term.

Disrupting Thinking Why How We Read Matters

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