Lyndsey Gantt- Blog Post #1: No More Independent Reading Without Support-Section 1

After spending the last year researching Independent Reading and its effect on reading growth, I agree with everything Miller says in Section 1 of, No More Independent Reading Without Support. How can we find the time? It has taken me ten years and a year worth of researching to find the time to give my students the most valuable element to support reading growth, Independent Reading. Time was always a problem for Independent Reading time in my classroom because of the many reading programs we were trying to incorporate on a daily basis to teach students to read. Reading programs such as SRA, Sidewalks, Reading Recovery, and the basal always seemed to take all of the reading block in my classroom. Over the years I tried Reading Workshop models and I never had enough time beyond all of the mandated programs.

            In 2010 I tried to implement the Daily 5 in my classroom, which is a reading workshop type of framework that allows children to be engaged in literacy instruction, practice, and assessment. It turned out to be a disaster because I didn’t have enough time in the day outside of other programs to allow my students to read independently. This year has been my best year yet because I was given freedom of my literacy block. As soon as I found out that I didn’t have to teach the scripted programs and basal, I was rereading my CAFÉ and Daily 5 books by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. Yes, I am a dork. I was so excited to find that the Sisters had recently published the second addition of Daily 5 and it was all based on literacy and brain research. 

            So here is the good part, this year I have been able to fully implement CAFÉ and Daily 5 in my classroom and I have never felt more confident and excited about student learning. If you are not familiar with Daily 5, it is a structure that students come to the carpet for a 10 minute mini lesson on a focus strategy or skill then students spend the next 20 minutes practicing the strategy during independent reading time. The teacher confers with individual students during this time and meets with small groups of students with the same instructional needs. We do this three times each day, which means they are spending approximately 60 minutes a day practicing reading. Just as Miller says, “For students to do more than race through lots of books, they need a teacher to show them what behaviors they need to practice as they read, and the teacher needs opportunities to monitor and give feedback on how students are using those behaviors.” This is exactly what I am doing now in my classroom and I have learned more in the past three weeks about my students as readers than I have in the past 10 years. I am so excited to continue using Independent Reading as the focus in my classroom because students need lots of opportunities to practice reading. Practice makes perfect!