Lynn Brady's January Blog Miller Section 2

January Blog 6 Lynn Brady Miller Section 2: Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It

          As I read the first sentence of this section, I got very excited. The sentence was “Does Independent Reading Influence Students Achievements?”  In my heart I was saying yes because as a teacher you want to help your students be successful. As I continued to read, I saw where studies showed that independent reading was an essential practice. I provide lots of reading opportunities in my classroom and also ask students to read at home every night. I agree with the author when she stated that if our goal for students is to read independently then we have to make it a practice that happens during classroom time and outside of classroom time. Reading in class allows me the opportunity to conference and observe what and to see that students are actually reading. I was interested in the fact from a study that was mentioned about how different time allotments should be provided for students at different stages of development. I found that to be very interesting. I had never thought about that.  I might have to agree with that statement since I do notice how the better readers in my class will read the entire time versus the poorer readers tend to stop reading before time is over. One area I do have difficulties with is my class library. I am not sure how to set it up to be most effective and kid friendly in my room. I did like reading about the Genre Wheel that this article suggested. I might give that a try to see if that helps my students become better familiar with all the different genres and not just read fiction and non-fiction. This will help them to become more familiar with other terms like mysteries, fantasy and folktale. As I read over all the studies mentioned in this chapter, I was glad to see that I do some of the suggested strategies in my classroom. However, I also read about some strategies that I would like to implement into my Independent Reading time. I really enjoyed reading this chapter and made lots of notes. I hope to be able to improve my reading practices by using some of their ideas.