Allie Meier Blog Post 3-Why Not? What Works? Miller and Moss

Independent Reading is an essential practice at any grade level and so students can  develop background knowledge, improve their fluency and comprehension, heightens motivation, increases reading achievement, and helps students broaden their vocabulary and in our school, expanding our students vocabulary is essential and necessary. As teachers we should provide practices that are supportive to our students based on their needs.  Practices that are critical for effective independent reading, which have been utilized this year by my classroom on a daily basis are classroom time to read, to choose what they read, explicit instruction. My job to support this process is to question my readers about what they read, support them with strategies and know what books my students have in their book boxes to make sure of variety and relevance. The teacher must play an active role in knowing their students and the process as a whole.  The teacher must structure, guide, teach, interact with, monitor and hold students accountable for time spent reading independently and silently. This chapter explains how important and crucial  This will help all teachers understand the purpose of independent reading and the correct way to implement it in the classroom. This year has been a year to implemented and now that it is the end of the year I can see how effective the implementation of these principal help they end up where they need to be as reader by the end of first grade. Motivation has been so high this year and I have truly seen the power that self selected, independent reading time each day has on my students. No turning back now for this teacher!