Section 1-NOT THIS: Is There Enough Time - Debbie Miller
It seems since I started teaching
the main problem every year is always finding time. Every year there is
something else students and teachers are being forced to do and the first thing
a teacher says is “I don’t know how I am going to find the time.” It is a big
problem. Creating a schedule that works for my students and allows enough time
for them to actually learn the material is always a struggle for me. There just
isn’t enough time in the day. I feel like sometimes I am just throwing
information at my students and hoping some of them can catch onto it.
I am a big advocate of reading. I
love to read myself and really want my students to love to read as well. I feel
like teaching reading is one of my weaknesses. I don’t really remember learning
how to read, I just remember doing it. I have really had to learn a lot about
how to teach students the strategies they need to read.
In section 1, Miller focuses on
finding the time. When she discussed how she helped one school look at their
schedules in order to find time, I began thinking about my own schedule. In the
beginning of the school year it is especially hard to find extra time because
students are still learning routines and getting used to being in school, many
for the first time ever. Going to the bathroom can often take an extreme amount
of time, but as the year progresses it may be easier to find extra time for
students to practice reading and enjoy it. I would also be more apt to find the
time for students to read if I knew they were really getting a lot out of it.
My biggest obstacle is how to get
my students to read independently before they can even read at all and keep
them on task. It takes a while before my students can put words together to
read and I struggle with how to start them reading independently before they
can actually read. It is kind of stressful, because I know they will become
bored, start to distract others and may cause them to think of reading as a
chore. I am guilty of giving my students books and just letting them go read
without having a real purpose. It makes a lot of sense to give them tools and
then let them practice these so that they have a reason for reading. I just am
unsure of the scope and sequence of how and what to teach them with their mini
lessons. I feel like a lot of my teaching of reading was kind of sporadic and
not organized well. I was teaching them to read but not in a way I felt
confident.
This section made a lot of sense in
the boosting of students actually practicing reading as opposed to doing
activities about reading. So often this becomes the go to for centers. I am
guilty of this a lot. It is hard for me to just let them go read. I think because
I am not as confident with how to get them to the point of reading
independently purposefully.
I look forward to learning how to
make my students enjoy reading and how to give them the tools they need to be
better readers. It is an area I feel I am weak in and I hope to learn more and
to become more confident in teaching reading.
When school started I thought I was weak in the independent reading area. It has been great doing Readers Workshop this year. We have taught them how to love books and take care of books. At first I thought this was babyish. They really did need to learn how to take care of books. They now find a little rip in a book and run and tell me that someone was a, "book bully." Last week we discussed how to read a book. You would have been impressed listening to them read the stories by looking at the pictures. It is nice to be able to go around and talk to them about what they are reading.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I so appreciate your honesty! I think teaching reading is an uncomfortable place for most teachers. Like you said, we often don't remember how we learned to read--we just started doing it, somewhere in our past. Because we don't remember the path we took, it's a scary thing for us to lead other little ones down the path too. It still scares me from time to time because it is such a HUGE responsibility! I liked reminding my kinders to read the pictures early in the school year--it keeps their interest a bit longer and develops their concept of story. You are right about finding the time--that is the biggest challenge, but it sounds like you are ready to look critically at your schedule to serve your kids' needs--that is awesome!
ReplyDeleteHi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how open you are to learning new strategies and structures to improve your reading instruction. I love how in this chapter Miller reminds us of the importance of time and suggests reviewing our schedules and our routines to determine how we are spending our literacy block and where in that time can we adjust/tweak/restructure so that the majority of our students' time is spent in engaged reading and writing. While I know that when they are building stamina as readers and while they are moving towards reading and writing conventionally we can feel uncomfortable and we can think that they aren't ready. This is why I appreciate the importance of teaching into and out of reading workshop. Meeting students where they are and building from there can be powerful at promoting growth and can help us see the gains they are making as readers and writers. Thank you for your openness and your willingness to grow and learn with us. Sincerely, Dawn