Stephanie Wofford-March/April Blog

For this blog post, I chose to read Routman's Chapter 9-Emphasize Shared Reading.  I have to admit, this year I have not been the best with respect to shared reading.  When I saw the title of this chapter, I thought it might be a good reminder for me as to why it's so important.  The text gives a great checklist on page 133 which details all of the things that teachers are able to demonstrate through shared reading.  I'm glad that I have a document camera so that I'm able to use just about anything for shared reading and have it displayed so that all can see it.  I like the framework, which begins on page 134.  It reminds me to have time for students to discuss the text periodically with each other.  This is also great practice for my ELL students as well.  I do agree that the shared reading is a great segway into independent reading since you've already modeled good reading for students.  The list on page 136 gives great ideas for student discussion starters.  This is something that would be good to have handy...maybe on my clipboard.  There's also a great list on page 138 that would be great to have handy which lists sentence stems for both teacher and students.  When just getting into shared reading, these lists are great to have to help guide meaningful conversations about the text.  The author also provides an excellent example of a script from a shared reading done with students to give a good idea of what it might look like when implemented in the classroom.  I think that one of the best ideas Routman has is to put sticky notes in the text before reading so that you have talking points already there...it's easy once you start reading to miss important opportunities for teaching.