Love Literacy
Sparking Creativity & Sharing Ideas to enhance instruction
"The Difference between ordinary and extraordinary is practice!"
I LOVE that quote by Vladimir Horowitz! When we are learning to play a sport, ride a bike, or drive a car, we are expected to practice, a lot! We know we can't get better at our sport, or riding a bike, and especially at driving a car, without hours of practice, coaching, and support. Well, the same holds true for reading! Reading practice can take the form of independent reading, partner reading, or guided reading. In each of these activities, students are the ones responsible for doing the majority of the decoding and comprehension work, while we are responsible to coach, support, and guide. (This is different from a readaloud time or shared reading time because we, the teachers, are the ones doing the most of the work during these activities - modeling time!)
Take a minute and total up the number of minutes students spend reading on a daily basis. If you teach Preschool or Transitional Kindergarten, do students spend at least 10 minutes looking at familiar books that interest them each day? If you teach Kindergarten or 1st, do students spend 20 or more minutes reading a book they chose each day? If you teach 2nd through 6th grade, do students spend 30 or more minutes reading their own choice books?
If not, no worries...you’re not alone. It’s really hard to fit in independent reading when there’s SO much we have to cover each school day. I struggled with this, too!
However, leading literacy researchers are finding that in order to help students grow, build a literacy culture in buildings, and allow for all our students get in the practice they need, it’s important to strive for 20-40 minutes of DAILY structured independent reading time in our elementary grades, meaning students are reading books they choose at their own level and teachers are conferring with students and writing notes about student reading behaviors! Here are some suggestions to help you start to make more structured independent reading happen in your classroom:
Replace & Integrate!
Also, we could try to integrate reading with science and social studies content. You could accomplish this by selecting informational texts for your guided reading groups, and/or by devoting part of science or social studies to having students read about a topic that interests them. Readworks (Click for more info) is an excellent resource for informational topics at a variety of levels! The workshop model of teaching can be integrated into all our content areas for more student options and differentiation! Let's think outside the box for our kids!
Break it up!
Squeeze reading in!
Books, Books, Books!
It's Not always that easy!
Hard work pays off!
#JPSReads - Readers Are Leaders!
Email: jschultz@jpsonline.org
Website: loveliteracyjps.weebly.com
Location: Jenison, Georgetown Township, MI, United States
Phone: 6164578491 2141
Twitter: @janetschultz4