Blog Post #7 Lyndsey Elliott's Routman Chapter 6&7: Plan for and Monitor Independent Reading/Make Assessment Instuction's Working Partner

After reading Routman's chapters 6 and 7, I realized independent reading has been my main focus this year with some focus on assessment. I focused so much on structure and procedures this year that next year I will fine tune my independent reading and focus more on assessments that will drive my instruction. Implementing independent reading this year has taught me more about my students learning than any other structure or program that I have used in the past. Everything I have read in the last couple of years has supported independent reading and the research behind it. Routman states that just adding more time and space for independent reading is not enough. I agree with him and believe we need a carefully designed, structured reading program that includes demonstrating, teaching, guiding, monitoring, evaluating, and goal setting along with student choice. Yes! This is what our school needs to move students forward. I strongly believe that having a structured reading program such as the one just mentioned will help improve student reading achievement, overall. Routman and I believe that any reading program that substantially increases the amount of reading students do will impact their reading achievement. I am still concerned about our struggling readers. According to Routman and other research our low achieving students need far more real reading and writing using authentic texts. Right now my lowest students are the ones only getting direct instruction programs and they are missing out on independent reading time in the classroom. My plan for next year is to try and schedule my lowest students’ time during the day for independent reading even if they are out of the classroom most of the day for direct instruction programs. I know that I have had a difficult time with giving students enough teacher feedback during independent reading. I conference but not as much as I should or would like to. I plan to ensure my students are applying what I have been teaching them so that we continue to grow and set new goals together. Reading for understanding is the most important part of the reading process to me, and I hope to do a better job monitoring students understanding while reading. Beings that I am confident in my independent reading program next year I plan to work on perfecting the program with additional resources. Another goal I have for next year is to add a variety of reading materials other than books to my classroom library. Now I need to spend some time gathering reading materials, such as, magazines, catalogues, instruction booklets, student-published stories, newspapers, comic books, raps, and poetry. I want my students to have access to lots of reading material that interest them.      


          Our Daily 5 reading workshop framework lends itself to almost everything in chapter 6 and 7. I feel not only my independent reading time but also how I use partner reading in my classroom. I think it is very important to allow student to partner read a lot in primary grades because they learn so much from one another as well as how to collaborate and discuss books. Just-Right Books is something I spent 6 weeks teaching how to do this year and I feel as though it has been successful but I will need to monitor my students through conferences a little more than I am currently to make sure students are reading the majority of just-right books. One of the things suggested in chapter 6 is to bring in text in which I can read the words but don’t have the background and vocabulary to understand it. I am looking forward to adding this activity when teaching about just-right books next year. I feel good about my reading instruction and the way I assess with the framework I use but I do plan on doing more conferencing and informal assessments during reading. I will refer to the framework in this book for informal reading conferences and child-friendly reading goals. Working on the way and amount of informal assessment I use will hopefully teach me to teach more intentionally. I know the importance of looking at what a student needs at the moment and moving them forward even though it’s hard to do consistently sometimes without addressing the entire class. To conclude my thoughts on chapter 7, I wanted to say that implementing SLO’s this year is accountability for teaching reading and because of them our school now has a policy in place that will hopefully contribute to student success in the future.