Sande Tisdale
Blog One: No More Independent Reading Without Support
I was very happy to see the
title of this book in the list of suggested readings. I was one of those
teachers who gave children self-selected reading time while I was working with
small groups but I often felt the children weren’t engaged in IR in a
productive way. I remember reading about the example of ‘finding Waldo.” Some children
do gravitate to activity books or pictures books rather than books that engage
them in real reading. I like the idea of Scaffolded
Silent Reading (ScSR). The book states that a “. . .study found that
in-school IR led to gains that were better than the national averages in
reading rates and a 43 percent average increase in the proportion of ideas
recalled, representing a substantial increase in comprehension over the school
year.” Independent reading is important but I feel like I need to spend more
time teaching children how to do it effectively.
I was interested to read the
section about the correlation between IR and the success of students. I think
we all agree “ . . . that the best readers read the most, and that poor readers
read the least.” I was happy to see that the authors wrote about the difference
between those relationships being correlational as opposed to causal. I know that children who have access to lots
of books and an emphasis on reading at home are generally those who have more
well educated parents, who live in households with higher incomes, and whose
parents value education. All of these factors affect the acquisition of reading
skills.
I have a lot of teachers’
sites saved on social media. I now find myself looking at these activities with
a more discerning eye – asking myself, “Would this activity be more important
to my students’ education than having the opportunity to practice reading?” I
also am taking another look at my morning activities. I loved gathering my
children together on the floor in the morning to do calendar activities and
read alouds. In second grade, we don’t dress bears like the example in our book
but are all of our activities more important than students’ reading? Some, I
would say yes; others, not so much.
Sande you have made me think deeper about my students performance during independent reading! I learned last year how to use a chart to write down what each student was doing during independent reading. As I used this chart I was able to plan a small discussion on how to show students what they are suppose to do during independent reading. I also observed the books they were reading and noticed some of them were just bored, which caused them to play during this time. Also, after looking at Mrs. Mitchell's video of her kindergartners I got the idea of providing reading early in the morning because my reading time starts in the afternoon. So, after morning work I decided to let some early finishers place books on the rug for students to free read before we begin our day.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I love reading other teachers blog posts and getting ideas. You have to be a team player to teach and be able to bounce ideas off of each other.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that you allow your students who finish their work early the opportunity to read.
I like that you talk about independent reading and how we should be more attentive and question whether or not students are engaged in reading. It does seem like the students who are more proficient in reading enjoy it more. I think it's important to evaluate how you're teaching constantly, so the fact that you're look at different activities and looking at them more intently is really cool to hear about. Interesting post!
ReplyDeleteHi Sande,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you chose this book because you want to make the most of independent reading time. Like you, I knew I need to support my readers in learning about independent reading and ensuring that I communicated and scaffolded expectations in ways that met individual students' needs. I am also glad this chapter helped you evaluate your reading activities and supplemental resources with a critical eye. Mills makes a great point in this text asking us as teachers to look at what we are spending our students' time and energy on and ask ourselves is this something we're doing because we've always done it and would this provide us with more time for students to engage in meaningful reading? If so, we may need to clear the benches that we've been guarding. I love that you are already doing that in providing students who finish early with more independent reading time.
Sincerely,
Dawn and Melissa