While reading this chapter a couple of things stood out to me. The most important thing I am realizing is that IR is an important factor to improving reading for my students. Of course, I want the best and the most growth out of my students, so if that can happen by IR then that is what I will do. This section said that if students get the IR time during the day at school they will be more likely to have IR at home. I think that is awesome, but I wonder if the students that make up the population of our school would have a selection of books to read at home. Since this has been a worry of mine for a while, I have been encouraging my students to buy Scholastic books. I show them the catalog and send it home in their Friday folders. I make sure to express how much of a deal they get. Come on, there are some books for $1 and you cannot beat that! So far I have had 3 students order from the Scholastic catalog and I hope to continue to get more students to order.
I NEED A BIGGER AND BETTER LIBRARY! Yes, that is me shouting because it is so important to me. I know after years to come I will have a decent library, but right now it isn't as perfect as I wish it was. This section said that students need 300-600 books to choose from, That is a lot of books!!! It makes sense that the more books provided, the better of selection for the students. I envy teachers with perfectly organized libraries that have a wide variety of books in them.
I thought it was very interesting to see that lower readers needed to read for only 15 minutes, while higher readers needed to read for 40 minutes during IR. Now I am asking myself what do my lower readers do after their 15 minutes is up while my higher readers still have time left? Something else that I read during this chapter that grabbed my interest was that during IR time the students needed to read easier texts. That goes against everything I have been taught. Throughout the college I was always taught to challenge students with books rather than encourage them to read easier texts. I completely understand their reasoning and wish I would have known sooner.
The genre wheel is something I am going to start in my classroom on Monday morning. I loved this idea. I always find my students reading the same type of books and sticking to those books. My students love Baby Mouse and My Weird School, although I am very glad they are interested in self selecting those books, I would love for them to read all types of genres.
Once again, another good section by Miller and Moss.
I hear you shouting!! Building your classroom library has been important to you since Day 1. Have you tried writing any Donors Choose grants? That might be a great source of new books! You ask what to do about the time differential (40 min. vs. 15). Could you break up the reading time for your growing readers by putting a guided reading group in the middle, or another balanced literacy center? You are right--our readers will grow by reading, even if the texts are not "hard"!
ReplyDeleteHi Emily,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you are enjoying Miller and Moss and are getting a lot of relevant strategies to implement with your readers to encourage their growth. The genre wheel is a great way to help expose students to a variety of genres, to encourage them to choose different genres then what their go-to genres are, and to help us increase our classroom library to include books that are of interest to our readers. Thanks, Dawn