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A Reading Map

Now that you’re ready to kick back and read, let your peers offer a few suggestions. Educators have recommended books—and other media—that have been especially helpful to them in four key categories: Professional Development Books that Inspire Entertainment Resources to Share with Students

A Tale of Two Book Clubs

Teacher book clubs range from district-sponsored professional development groups to cozy book salons with their own unique brand. NEA Today takes a look at both.

Cover Story

Read & Renew

Feed your mind and lighten your load with books recommended by your colleagues.

by Sabrina Holcomb

A journey through a great book can be the ultimate mental road trip and your ticket to a renewed sense of purpose. But with almost 200,000 new books published in America each year, where do you start? Never fear. NEA educators have assembled a perfect road map to summer reading you’ll benefit from all year long—tips of the trade and favorite books to help refresh your professional skills, recharge your imagination, and rejuvenate your spirit.

You can read the signs, the telltale clues that your school is shedding its winter coat as summer fast approaches. The students are restless, everyone is a little giddy with graduation fever, and you’re asking yourself that all-important question: How can you make the most of that brief stretch of promise and possibility between the end of this school year and the start of a new one?

Remember that splendid booklist you’re painstakingly preparing for your students as a way to broaden their summer horizons? What about taking a page from your own list? You don’t even have to feel guilty about reading for personal pleasure, says NEA reading specialist Barbara Kapinus. Researchers have found that whether teachers read for personal fulfillment, professional inspiration, or just plain fun, their reading informs their instruction and adds an extra dimension to their teaching.

You’re already adept at getting sheer joy out of a good book. Here’s what the experts say about getting pleasure and pragmatic benefits from your booklist this summer—and well into the next school year.

More... Read Out of Your Field Join a Professional Book Club Try Audio Web Exclusives: Summer’s Hot New Picks Feeding the Bookworm How to Organize a 'Teachers as Readers' Club Stop the Brain Drain

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