Well, Peter Johnston, who is a reading researcher who is the author of Choice Words and Opening Minds, he talks about how the way we talk to kids becomes part of the narrative that they write about themselves. Students have a lot of their self‑esteem tied up in reading either positively or negatively, and I think we have to be very mindful that when we call students words like struggling, there’s not a lot of hope in that term.
For me, striving reader, developing reader is a better fit in reality, and there’s more hope in that term. We’re all on the same highway. We just might be at different mile markers as readers, but we all can get to that destination with effort, with passion, with determination. And I want my students to see that it is possible for them. And when we start labeling students terms like struggling, parents become dismayed, teachers view that child differently, and the students – most important, the students begin to view themselves as someone who may not be able to do it, may not be able to become a reader.
