Jessica Amsler’s Blog Post 1 No More Independent Reading without Support, Section 1

As I read section one I felt really good about what first grade has been doing for the past few weeks.  We were able to find the minutes!  We struggled to find the time for independent reading for so long and then we cut out SRA.  I am worried about what the kids won’t learn by not doing SRA but I am excited to see what great readers they will become as they go through the year with choice.   We are doing the Daily 5 this year and are pretty much sticking to the book this year.  You can venture out and do your own thing but since this is our first year we are doing what the authors tell us to do.  Our students seem to love the Daily 5! We have a two hour reading block and the students are given time for independent reading every day with books of their choice.  I feel like we have done the first step by finding the minutes.

 To me, the most powerful sentence in Section one is on page 1, it states that we want “children to develop the habits and identify of thoughtful, strategic, proficient readers, they need to practice and, to make their practice productive, they need the tools that we can provide through instruction.”  This is so true! We are all trying to teach our students the skills that they will use throughout their life and reading is imperative!  When I read this I thought about registration day and how so many of the parents have a hard time registering their children because they do not have the ability to read the papers we ask them to fill out.  Will the worksheets we’ve been running off for years and having the students complete them help them in the future?  Will they be able to fill out papers on registration day?  Will they read to their future children?  Will they as excited as I get about picking out a book at Barnes & Noble or the public library?  Will they grow to love reading? My goal is to help my students become better readers and to love reading.  I think by giving them free choice and allowing them to read what they want to read about that they will reach that goal.

As I was reading this section I thought of my school experience and how much I hated reading.  I hated reading because of Accelerated Reader (I know I’ve shared this with some of you) and not having many books to choose from.  There were not a lot of AR books when I was in eighth grade and we had to have so many points to get a good grade at the end of each semester.  I was a good student but I did not like to be told that I had to read something and the choices of books at this time were slim.  I read the easiest books and got 0.5 points so that I would not fail.  I remember my mom being upset with me and my teacher talking to me as well.   I felt bad for not working as hard as I should have but I didn’t like any of the books that I could choose from.  I hope that by giving my students choice that they will have a good school experience and learn to love to read not hate reading!