Best and Worst Reading Times

How do we author our own reading lives?  Who do we want to be as readers?  These are the questions we've been asking ourselves this week.  To understand these questions, we looked back into our past.  We thought about our best and worst reading times.   Here is a sample of responses from the kids. 

Worst Times:
-  Reading out loud and messing up in front of everybody.  It was embarrassing. 
-  Reading the book and having to answer the questions.
-  Book reports (boring!)
-  When I tried to read a chapter and I didn't understand one word.
-  When we had to answer the questions in our reading book after a story.
-  When you're not comfortable or you get distracted.
-  When you stumble over words.

Best Times:
-  When I did not want to put my book down.
-  When I'm in a comfortable spot.
-  Reading when you have a snack.
-  If time flies when you're reading.
-  When you can't be bothered.
-  Silent reading.
-  Book groups.
-  When I can picture what I read.
-  Buddy reading.
-  When the teacher reads aloud to us.
-  When I can find books that I love.

After sharing this information, we talked about what we want our classroom to be like.  We want to be a group of kids who have choice in our reading - we want to choose interesting, just-right books.  We want to be a classroom that talks about books and shares books with our friends.  We want to be in a classroom where we can be comfortable and free from distractions.  We want to be a class who reads a lot and understands what we read (although we're not really into answering lots of comprehension questions).  What are your best and worst times for reading?  We'd love to hear your thoughts!