As a life long bibliophile who happens to have a custom made “Super Reader” costume, I’m  last one to complain about an entire month devoted to celebrating the love of reading. However, I think it is essential that reading is celebrated all year long.  In honour of this sentiment I thought I’d share a couple of my favourite tips for sharing your reading life with your school community all the months of the year!

“I am Currently Reading” posters:

The wall just outside your classroom is valuable real estate. Take advantage of this by keeping an updated “I am Currently Reading” poster to share your reading life with your school community.  It is also a key opportunity to show your school community that reading comes in many different forms; picture books, graphic novels, audio books, e-books, podcasts, magazines.

Click here to download five, full colour, totally customizable “I am Currently Reading” posters.  I recommend either laminating or placing your poster inside a plastic page protector, that way you can easily use a dry erase marker to keep your poster up to date!

Leverage Classroom and School Social Media Accounts:

Many classrooms and schools have social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter that give our school community a glimpse at the day to day goings on.  Use this digital space to amplify the importance of reading by creating a customized hashtag to curate book recommendations. For example, my reading hashtag on Instagram is #msmclauchlan reads.  When this hashtag is searched on Instagram, the results are a list of 100+ book recommendation posts I’ve made over the last 5 years.  This is a great opportunity to highlight the ebb and flow of our lives as readers.  Sometimes I’m a voracious reader, posting multiple books a week. Other times, my posts highlight a streak of audiobooks, emphasizing an “on the go” life that needs books are also “on the go”.  Also consider using your reading hashtag to highlight books that are available from the school and local public library.

Hopefully you can use these two easy tips to harness the spirit and energy of February and “I Love Read” month into the other 11 months of year! Feel free to comment below with your tips for how you share your reading life with your school community!