Tricia Baltzersen of Algonquin uses books to inspire her sixth-grade students

Tricia Baltzersen's eyes light up when she talks about books.

"My mom used to read this story ... 'Are You My Mother.' Every night my mom would read that book to me. It would make me cry," said Baltzersen of Algonquin. "I don't remember a time when I didn't love books."

The 47-year-old sixth-grade literacy teacher at Marlowe Middle School in Lake in the Hills says the key to getting students excited about reading is matching them with the right book that can open up a whole new world.

"It's not that you don't like to read ... it's that you haven't found the right book yet to read," she tells students.

Her own two children, A.J. and Alyssa, now a senior and freshman, respectively, at Jacobs High School in Algonquin, didn't love reading as kids either, she said.

"That's always the struggle - getting that book that interests them, that's at the right level," she said.

For Baltzersen, the book that started her love affair with reading was Laura Ingalls Wilder's time-honored classic "Little House on the Prairie." In her youth, Baltzersen read "Nancy Drew" and "Hardy Boys" mysteries.

"That emotional response to a book is my favorite part of reading," she said. "My voracious readers that are in here, they still have that same experience. I don't think the overly technical world has sucked that from their lives."

Baltzersen said she uses a story-based teaching style in her classroom, talking to her students a lot and making herself approachable.

"I think the kids find me relatable," she said. "I try to use humor. I try to know them, connect with them however I can. The kids know that I am in their corner. One of the best things about teaching sixth grade is it's the bridge between elementary and middle school."

Baltzersen uses experiential learning and even outdoor education to get students engaged.

Each year, Marlowe sixth-graders put on a Medieval Fair at the school - this year, it's from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11. Students are assigned medieval jobs, which they have to research by reading historical fiction, and then play their parts in costume.

"Hopefully, this is an interesting and fun enough topic that research doesn't seem daunting," Baltzersen said. "It's so much fun. Kids get extra credit if they speak in an accent."

As part of the fair, students incorporate science (building catapults), mathematics (learning about tessellations), and social studies (learning concepts of feudalism, reading historical fiction and writing research papers).

"I'm a big believer in the middle school philosophy (of) interdisciplinary units," Baltzersen said.

Baltzersen has taught 14 years at District 158 and spent 24 years altogether in education. She started out teaching at a Catholic school in Chicago, then taught seventh grade at a Schiller Park school, and later worked as a reading specialist at River Trails Middle School in Mount Prospect.

Literacy incorporates reading, writing, speaking, and listening, she said.

"The emphasis now is so much more on thinking as opposed to giving answers, more critical thinking and raising the bar," she said.

Baltzersen teaches in the gifted cohort at Marlowe and was an early implementer of the district's one-to-one technology initiative using Google Chromebooks in the classroom.

"It just opens so many other doors," she said. "It so changes the way we need to think. Most of the novels that we read in literacy are traditional books. A lot of it (curriculum/books) is going to be more device-based in the future."

Bringing in authors and celebrities - such as Ginger Zee, the weather anchor from "Good Morning America," - to speak to students also has gotten a technological upgrade using Skype videoconferencing.

"We like to keep bringing the world into our classroom," Baltzersen said.

Baltzersen said her best tip for teachers is to love their students and keep trying every method of reaching them.

"A lot of people don't remember middle school because they hated it," she said. "There is always a kid who is looking for another book."