Blog Post 3-
October
Section 1-
Not This But That: No More Independent Reading Without Support
Molly Peake
“Finding the
Time” is the title of the first section of this chapter. That is the story of a teacher’s life…finding
the time to get everything squeezed into 7 hours a day 5 days a week. As teachers, our days are packed full with
countless numbers of activities, tasks, and chores. I am lucky and thankful that I work in such
an awesome district and school that recognizes the importance of having a
period of time in the day, each day, for reading. Over the past years, my grade level has
taught reading by integrating it into either social studies, science, and/or
both. We are now learning how to adopt
the model of teaching by using the reading workshop model. I would love to have a time where students
can truly “DEAR”. This is a work in
progress. There are days when students
have time to read silently for an extended period of time on books that they
have chosen. Other days are go, go, go where
students do not even have time to pull a book out and read something
independently. The last section of this
chapter “More Than Just DEAR” was like a lightning bolt to the head to me. Just finding time, as mentioned above, in
this chapter is just not enough. “For
students do more than race through lots of books, they need a teacher to show
them what behaviors they need to practice as they read, and the teacher needs
opportunities to monitor and give feedback on how students are using those behaviors.” I am thankful that my school and district
sees that is valuable to learn these modes of teaching and is taking the time
to have pull-out sessions to provide teachers with effective ways to have a
better reading environment in our classroom.
I'm glad you pinpointed a key idea in the text. It's important that teachers don't just let kids read and have no contact with them. Conferencing is vital when it comes to independent reading time. Students need to have that conversation with a teacher who can guide them in the reading process. You also have a point that some times it's difficult to find time in the day. However, with your shift to the workshop approach, you could build in days where students practice the skill you've taught with books of their choice. I'd love to help with this if it's something you're interested in!
ReplyDeleteHi Molly,
ReplyDeleteThank you for valuing independent reading and the support for students' choice of text and scaffolding through modeling in a mini-lesson within independent reading provided in a workshop model. I loved reading that you and your colleagues were interested in trying out a reading workshop model. The components of an effective reading workshop are: mini-lesson, time to apply, conferencing, and share time all informed by the teacher's formative assessments and observations. Let me know how I can continue to support you in this work. Thank you, Dawn