Are you looking for some good professional books to read? This list of five must read educational books will inspire you on your teaching journey!
I have read many books that have shaped my career and helped me become the best teacher that I could be, but these are my very favorites!
#1 Marva Collins Way
When did you know you wanted to be a teacher? Did you make that decision later in life…or were you always a teacher in your soul? As a little girl, I was always the one who wanted to “play school”. I would round up the neighborhood kids and I would be the teacher.
I remember the day I got hired in my first teaching position. It was a Friday afternoon and I was standing in my mother's kitchen. The phone rang. I ran to get it because I had just had an interview the day before, for a first grade position at a local elementary school. I prayed this would be the call…..being a teacher was all I had ever wanted to do. So when I got that call from my soon to be principal, I was over the moon!
During my interview, I was asked the question “What are some books you have read recently?” Hmmm…..ok that was easy. I had just finished a book that would shape my career forever. The book was Marva Collins' Way
If you haven't read it, please put it on the top of your book list for your summer reads. I wanted to be Marva Collins ~ her strength, her ability to connect with students, her way with troubled children. Marva Collins started her year with this statement “The first thing we are going to do here, children, is an awful lot of believing in ourselves”.
I patterned myself after Ms. Collins. I knew I wanted to connect with my students and find the good in all of them. I wanted to take those troubled kids and show them that I loved them and believed in them. Marva Collins taught me how to do that.
I LOVED this book! In her book, Jill Ostrow, takes her kids on a year long adventure where they transformed their room into an island. The students, a multi-aged classroom of 6-9 year olds, literally built the island (and everything needed) and transformed the room. No more desks and chairs. This room had nooks and crannies and bridges and huts, all built with the strategies of cooperative learning and problem solving. 
Oh, how I loved her. I wanted to step inside her quaint and charming classroom with the checkered tablecloth, twinkle lights and soft lamps around the room. 
I had always been an advocate of learning centers in my classroom. I remember having centers in my very first classroom back in 1982. It was VERY new back then and teachers thought I was a little bit crazy….and they were intrigued. “Your students don't sit at desks in rows?”, “Your kids move around the room and go to centers?” What's that all about??? Those were some of the questions asked of me as a new teacher. It seems funny now….everybody uses centers in their classrooms today.
Finally, one of my more recent finds in the book world was Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading
I learned about guided reading about 15 years ago. I took a series of classes from a friend who had been trained at the Ohio State Literacy Collaborative, which was started by the gurus of guided reading, Fontas and Pinnell.
I wasn't new to guided reading when I discovered Jan Richardson, and yet I still loved this book. Jan Richardson delves into guided reading strategies in her book and teaches you how to have an effective guided reading lesson. She provides detailed lessons and lots of resources you can use in your own guided reading groups. If you are struggling with guided reading or just want a refresher, this is a great book for every elementary reading teacher.
. It looks like a winner to me and I've seen a lot of buzz about it on social media, so I'm going to give it a shot. I'll let you know what I think of it when I finish. 
nice post