What is meant by Wide Reading?

"You need to broaden your wide reading."

Two months ago, a colleague at school made this remark to me. I was asked if I had read certain novels. I had not heard about many of them. However, some were classic novels that I may look at reading in the future and was "instructed" to re-read certain titles because of student interest or because of their place in the curriculum.

To me "wide reading" has been about spending a period of time e.g. thirty minutes or one hour reading, focusing on literature of interest but also challenging myself to read a variety of literature.

On a typical day, I will spend on average between one hour and one and a half hours a day reading books. I also read the newspaper for about an hour a day on top of my book reading. 

My reading preferences are geared towards non-fiction, since I enjoy reading about the world that we live in and boosting my general knowledge including:

• Geopolitics (It has helped me understand some of the challenges facing the world right now e.g. Ukraine and China)
• History
• Poiltics
• Economics
• Business
• Social Trends/Current Affairs
• Biographies 

When I choose to read fiction I prefer:

• Young Adult Literature (helps me with book recommendations)
• Storylines reflecting issues facing society (including diversity)
• Science Fiction 
• Historical Fiction
• "Political Fiction" - Storylines focusing on politics

At times I have challenged myself to read items that may come from other genres such as Fantasy or Classics to help me recommend suitable literature to read to my students.

I feel thats wide enough for my reading

But some definitions of  "wide reading" focus on reading a wide range of literature relating to a specific topic e.g. Australian History or genre and being able to understand and comprehend its content. Did my colleague see it this way? 

What does "wide reading" mean to you?

ASLA Webinar – Creating Internal Wide Reading Challenges

On Wednesday Night, I presented my first (solo) professional learning session for the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) as part of their monthly webinar series. I had set myself a challenge for 2022 which was to lead a professional development session through a non-school provider. It has been five years since I presented my first professional learning session, but it was at a school level. I knew who my audience was at the time and was not daunting. 

Late last year, I attended one of the ASLA webinars and a question was asked in the feedback form if attendees were interested in presenting monthly webinars. I expressed my interest and it went from there. I decided to focus on Creating Internal Wide Reading Challenges as I felt that I owed a debt to those who provided their ideas to help me organise the Cover 2 Cover wide reading challenge for Bethany College Hurstville in 2019. 

I believe that there were people out there who wanted to create one and why not lend them a hand and share my experience and give them ideas. Even in 2019, I remember one teacher librarian on the OZTL-NET Forum who was looking to do the same and for me to share their ideas with them. 

I felt it was a “dry topic” when it came to school libraries and wide reading, again raising opportunities to share. It also encouraged me that one of my fellow members of the Management Committee from the School Library Association of NSW was present along with others within my professional network, some of whom contacted me to ask about the webinar before the evening. 

As for the presentation itself, presenting it online was not scary at all even for a virtual audience. If it were face to face, I would have had a few nerves, but as I was able to organise the presentation and reinforce it with my experiences, it was straightforward. The feedback is positive so far from the attendees, but will need to post a little more in an upcoming post.