Cheri Parker Blog Post Sept.

Cheri Parker

"The Pleasure Priciple" by Nancie Atwell

I absolutely loved the way Jed used the phrase “Reading in the zone”.  It is so difficult to get the youngest students to get “In the Zone”.  I love that it is okay to have silence as part of the zone.  As a student learner, teacher, reader….I have always required silence in order to do what Tyler wrote, “….like you’re in the book, like right next to the main character….”  I constantly instruct my youngest learners to make it real; you have to pretend to be there (in math problems too: use your name to make it real) when you read anything.  I tell them to “Put your voice on when you see dialogue/quotation marks; it makes it more interesting and you get swallowed up into the 5 elements of a good story.”

 Taking the time to not just DEAR is tough with all the activity that can sometimes take place in the classroom. I think about when I do have the time or make the time for student reading workshop time how I ask the children questions, but just had not thought about writing these down to make sure I hit each child with a few of these: “How is it?”, “What do you think so far?” or “What’s happening?”  I can reflect on my personality as an educator just as my eldest son once said to me, “Mom can we just drive to school without you teaching me something?”  I have a tendency to want to make every moment a lesson even in my classroom by asking them to read to me, help them decipher the vowel patterns we are learning for the week, question them on the 5 elements in the story they are reading.  Maybe slowing down and using the simple questions above will take me further into each one’s understanding their book choice and reading gains for the day.

          At this stage of the game my boys and girls are enjoying many varieties of books in their book baskets and I am hoping to get them to Get in The Zone with encouragement and advice, time to read, absolute silence, booktalks, and a variety of locations to get into a good book of choice.