Blog Post #3 Miller Section 1

In my classroom, I feel like I'm always out of time or always asking for more minutes in the day to get to everything that I need to get done.  As silly as this sounds, a light bulb went off in my head while reading section one "Is There Enough Time?"

I am so guilty of waiting for everyone to get quiet, or counting to five, or even lining up in different ways than just number order.  As soon as I read these things I thought "oh my!" There is time that I could use.

I also felt a tinge of guilt when I read the SSR or DEAR section in the text.  I grew up in school having this time at the end of the day.  We sat and read quietly at our desks until the bell rang.  I loved to read, so I always enjoyed this time.  I was always the student who would read the entire time during DEAR.  Perhaps this is why I tend to do this in my classroom.  I thought I made it more enjoyable to allow my students to sit where they would like to read silently.  I made sure that no one was side by side so that I could make sure everyone was reading.  The sentence, "we might see them flip a page every minute or so, but we can't see what's happening inside their heads.'' caught my attention.  I need to do better at making sure my students are reading or getting good use of this independent reading time.  I have been trying reading conferences in my classroom. I am not sure how exactly to go about this, or how a reading conference is supposed to look.  This is my next step in creating better readers within my students!