Brooke Confer’s Blog Post #1 Section 1: No
More Independent Reading Without Support
After reading Section 1 from No More
Independent Reading Without Support, I loved the way the author stated that
“children need to read. A lot.” It has taken me my whole career to understand
that children need to read extensively, not just what I require them to read,
but their choices as well. Sometimes we as teachers just expect students to
read what we tell them to and actually enjoy it. Most of the time from my
experience, they don’t. In order to allow students the joy of reading we have
to give them choice. Don’t we all love choice? I remember growing up and hating
the required readings that my teachers made me read. I loved to search through
the library and read the backs of books just to see what the story was about. I
didn’t look at a level. I looked at what I loved.
I am very
guilty of giving my students only a short period of time to independently read.
With all the other stuff and fluff that we have to get done during the day, I
struggle with time. I really liked the way the author made mention to “finding
the minutes”. This really made me reflect on the “extra” minutes that I may be
taking up for frivolous things. Maybe my morning work isn’t so important after
all. Maybe I should be letting them settle in with a good book of their
choosing. It is definitely something to ponder on. I also liked the way she
stated that, “teachers need to talk about how they make meaning of a text so
that the process is “visible” to the students”. That is another process that I
need to start doing more of with my students. I need to give more feedback to
the students to help them choose a book and I also need to make sure that what
they are reading they actually enjoy.
I can say that
for the past couple of years, I have devoted a two hour block time for
Reading/ELA. That has been such a positive outcome for myself and the students.
I have participated and continue to do the Daily Five and I have seen my students
grow as readers and writers. I know now that my goal needs to be to allow my
students to choose what books they enjoy as well as giving them real
independent reading time.
Wonderful insights, especially into "finding the minutes." Your question about morning work is a good one, and one that I have been grappling with myself. I gave up morning work when I moved to K and let them read instead, and it was amazing! However, the upper elementary grades tend to use morning work (or an end-of-week quiz) as a grade. How can we turn reading into accountable morning work? Do we have a "menu" of choices students must complete by the end of the week? Reading as morning work is a great idea (but shouldn't be the only time kids read, since the teacher can't conference very effectively while taking attendance, sending in lunch choices, and other such morning-y things) and I'd love to develop this idea with you!!
ReplyDelete