Heather Register's August Blog Post-Miller Section 1

Miller Section 1: Not This: Is there Enough Time?  And is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?

Coming from a fifth grade classroom into the reading coach position, I feel like I’m not very far removed from the very real classroom teacher time crunch. We fought hard to get all of the standards covered in time for testing. I remember grumbling that there just wasn’t enough time in the day to do everything “they” wanted me to do. “They” being the people in charge that wanted us to read longer, do math harder, and fit in that extra recess every day. I was convicted by Miller’s reference to the “benches” I may be guarding. When I look back to how I taught, I realized there were many instances throughout the day that I could’ve skimmed extra time off of transitions or other work and dedicated it to more reading opportunities. All of this done without the extra grumbling. As an educator, it comes down to priorities. Much like Mills and Clyde refer to in their article, “Children’s Success as Readers and Writers: It’s the Teacher’s Beliefs that Make the Difference,” it’s what the teacher feels is important that will take priority in the day. My belief is that reading is one of the most important skills a child can have. That being said, it should drive my instructional decisions.

Miller states what seems like common sense, “For children to develop the habits and identity of thoughtful, strategic, and proficient readers, they need to practice, and to make their practice productive, (p. 1).” We know that children need practice as readers yet all too often, we fall into the routine of trying to cram more instruction in a day, not better quality instruction, just more. The reading workshop Miller refers to as a means of guiding students through authentic reading opportunities is one we’ve heard about many times from many experts in the field. As a teacher, I used this approach to my reading lessons. Short focused mini-lessons with time for students to practice the skills they’ve learned were the crux of my reading block. What is confronting me as a practitioner is the idea that students should be choosing the books they read during this time. Here is where my red flag flies up again, worried that if they choose what they read, we will never have time to cover everything. During this choice time, is it acceptable to provide controlled choice? When I provided students with a variety of texts on a social studies topic from a variety of genres and allowed them to choose, was this enough to catch their attention and encourage them to read independently?

My final reaction in this section was to the statement made by the teachers in Baltimore, “We don’t really know our children as readers.” Knowing your students is one of the most important parts of the job of teacher. Knowing them as readers won’t happen unless you’re talking to them about what they do as readers. Conferring with students is the only way a teacher can assess what the student knows and what the student needs to know. When this isn’t a required task, it can often fall by the wayside in the interest of checking off other “to dos.” After our school stopped requiring them, I noticed that it was way too easy just to forget about conferences. Then I noticed that my kids weren’t doing as well in reading as I would have liked. When I decided to implement them again, I had issues with organization. Even after being shown different ways to keep track of conferences, there were times that I wasn’t approaching them in the organized way that signaled they were a priority.  I felt confident in my conferences by the end of last year. I was meeting with students, recording what I felt was important, and using my findings to fuel my lesson planning. I know this is important. As a teacher I feel that it should be a priority. Now all I need to do is help others find the time.

Dawn Mitchell's August Blog Post 1: Finding Time for Independent Reading

Dawn Mitchell's August Blog Post 1: Finding Time for Independent Reading

In Section I of Debbie Miller’s No More Independent Reading Without Support she writes that children learn to read by reading but not without support.  I love this challenge she gives us at the beginning of her book and I definitely think it is relevant to us at the beginning of this school year. 

Miller writes, “What if there were a way out? What if there were a way – at least for part of the day – where things slowed down, your students had their hands and minds on great books, and you had the pleasure of conferring with them about their reading and themselves as readers?  No rotations, activities, or worksheets – just you, your kids, and books. If you could find a way out, would you take it?”

Miller explains that independent reading isn’t just Sustained Silent Reading where everyone stops, drops, and reads, the teacher included.  She explained that truly effective independent reading provides an instructional component, an application component, and a formative assessment component so that students have support during independent reading time.  Miller advocates for a reading workshop model.  She knows that to do this well, there has to be a consistent block of time during the school day.

This time is an investment into the workshop structure.  It is an investment into independent reading and more than that, it is an investment into each one of our students.

For the last fourteen years of my teaching career I have worked to implement workshop structure for both writing and reading where students have a supportive context for their application of real world literacy skills.  I know first-hand how we, as teachers struggle against the clock for time to make this meaningful work happen.  This was the first roadblock I had when implementing reading/writing workshop into my own fourth grade class over a decade ago and it is still the first instructional roadblock I always hear from the wonderful teachers I work with.  We don’t have enough time.  I agree.  There never is enough time. 

Time is the great equalizer.  We all have the same amount, each and every day.  Since we cannot make any more time, I agree with Miller that it is worth our time to carefully examine our schedule and look closely for the time that is hiding.  There is time, chunks of it hiding in the minutes of morning work we do to keep kids on task while we take attendance.  I have found a little time here and a little time there in transitions that take too long or routines that may not be necessary to extend all morning.  Debbie also asked to take a long look at our existing reading block and to see if we were really using our time to engage students.  Do they really need the packets of worksheets, the isolated times for all of the activities in the basal reader…? 

I know from my own experience when I moved from a scripted program to an authentic workshop structure where I used time for independent reading and writing, for formative assessments to help me know who my students were as readers and writers, and what skills and strategies they were and were not using to make meaning I could design mini lessons to specifically target what they needed to work on.  This wasn’t always easy, but it was fulfilling and everyone in the classroom grew, including me.  I used every resource I had to create lessons and it was constantly changing because my students were. 

I love how Debbie explains the difference between SSR and reading workshop on page 7.  She says, “When students sit quietly at their desk with a book or magazine during DEAR or Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) time, we might see them flip a page every minute or so, but we can’t see what’s happening inside their heads.  We don’t have evidence of how they’re making meaning of the text, the specific ways they’ve grown as readers, or what they’re struggling with as they read.  Without that information, we can’t teach them how to get better and we can’t be sure that – even if they read every day – all students are becoming better readers this week than they were the one before.”

With knowing already before school begins that we have only 180 days to do the best we can with the time we have, it is vital that we utilize the most effective methods possible.  I want to know that my students are growing.  I want to see evidence of them applying what they are learning in their independent reading.  I want to give this year all I’ve got.  I want to give them independent reading with support.

Sincerely,

Dawn