Forged by Reading: The Power of a Literate Life

I am a longtime fan of Kylene and Bob. I’ve read many of their previous books and love them too. This one is an excellent extension as a literacy specialist.I recommend it to veteran ELA educators as well as those that are new to the field.It has a practical voice. As I read it, I felt as if I were listening to Kylene and Bob. And they hold nothing back here. They discuss issues that are current and relevant to the times.

This is the best “professional” book I’ve read in a long time (perhaps ever). I put professional in quotation marks because so much of what is written in this book extends far outside a school building, and America’s healing would be quickened if ideals from this book were adopted in schools, businesses, and beyond. While the book perfectly outlines the power of literacy and its role in one’s becoming, it also outlines the importance of questioning our beliefs and practices. As educators, we must embrace discomfort and move beyond a focus of mastery in reading as we instead focus on helping students consider how texts change them, how what they read extends far beyond a class or a school year, and how their own literacy can give them power to follow and to lead, to understand and to influence.As I read this, I constantly came back to the three big questions outlined by Beers and Probst in previous books. I especially stopped to consider what challenged, changed, or confirmed my beliefs. For me, this book did all three.

I am not even done with this book, but I have already passed the title on to so many of my colleagues and school leaders. My hope is that all teachers, especially of the humanities, will read this book and be inspired to reflect on their teaching and maybe even to reconsider some of their approaches to the teaching of reading. This line from page 42 has stayed with me: "But, too often compliance is mistaken for engagement." Once I read this, I could not un-see it! The fake reading and the fake writing are everywhere.

Eh...not the best book by Beers and Probst. Good ideas , but a bit preachy.

It's been a while since I've read what I consider to be an "educational book". I'm more of a webinar, virtual learning type of person. In fact this is how I learned of Beers and Probst's book.It is an impressive book that I could not put down. It speaks so many truths, and contains a large amount of historical data. It is a great reminder of the power that lies in reading.

I am very excited about this book & bought this particular copy for my DIL for Christmas. It arrived late & damaged. I can return it but I would prefer Amazon discount it instead. I am not happy with the shape it’s in but I hate to see it discarded.

Whenever I learn that there is a new soon to be published book written by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst, I begin the exciting wait until I can hold a new masterpiece in my hands. Just as with every collaboration before it, I was not disappointed. Forged by Reading is a heartfelt call to action for educators everywhere. In this remarkable book filled with hope and possibility, Kylene and Bob invite us to rethink the purpose of literacy as a way to empower ourselves and thus our students to view reading and writing through a lens of change maker. Inspired by this challenge, we are given page after page of thoughtful suggestions to bring this thinking to life in classrooms where social justice and equity are not merely seen as buzz words but as how we live our lives in and out of school. It is my hope that every teacher and school leader will read Forged by Reading and engage in conversations around these ideas to support a collective spirit of change.