Dawn Mitchell's August Blog Post 1: Finding Time for
Independent Reading
In Section I of Debbie Miller’s No More Independent Reading Without Support she writes that
children learn to read by reading but not without support. I love this challenge she gives us at the
beginning of her book and I definitely think it is relevant to us at the beginning
of this school year.
Miller writes, “What if there were a way out? What if there
were a way – at least for part of the day – where things slowed down, your
students had their hands and minds on great books, and you had the pleasure of
conferring with them about their reading and themselves as readers? No rotations, activities, or worksheets –
just you, your kids, and books. If you could find a way out, would you take it?”
Miller explains that independent reading isn’t just Sustained
Silent Reading where everyone stops, drops, and reads, the teacher included. She explained that truly effective
independent reading provides an instructional component, an application
component, and a formative assessment component so that students have support
during independent reading time. Miller
advocates for a reading workshop model. She
knows that to do this well, there has to be a consistent block of time during
the school day.
This time is an investment into the workshop structure. It is an investment into independent reading
and more than that, it is an investment into each one of our students.
For the last fourteen years of my teaching career I have
worked to implement workshop structure for both writing and reading where
students have a supportive context for their application of real world literacy
skills. I know first-hand how we, as
teachers struggle against the clock for time to make this meaningful work
happen. This was the first roadblock I
had when implementing reading/writing workshop into my own fourth grade class
over a decade ago and it is still the first instructional roadblock I always hear
from the wonderful teachers I work with.
We don’t have enough time. I
agree. There never is enough time.
Time is the great equalizer.
We all have the same amount, each and every day. Since we cannot make any more time, I agree
with Miller that it is worth our time to carefully examine our schedule and
look closely for the time that is hiding.
There is time, chunks of it hiding in the minutes of morning work we do
to keep kids on task while we take attendance.
I have found a little time here and a little time there in transitions
that take too long or routines that may not be necessary to extend all
morning. Debbie also asked to take a
long look at our existing reading block and to see if we were really using our
time to engage students. Do they really
need the packets of worksheets, the isolated times for all of the activities in
the basal reader…?
I know from my own experience when I moved from a scripted
program to an authentic workshop structure where I used time for independent
reading and writing, for formative assessments to help me know who my students
were as readers and writers, and what skills and strategies they were and were
not using to make meaning I could design mini lessons to specifically target
what they needed to work on. This wasn’t
always easy, but it was fulfilling and everyone in the classroom grew,
including me. I used every resource I
had to create lessons and it was constantly changing because my students
were.
I love how Debbie explains the difference between SSR and
reading workshop on page 7. She says, “When
students sit quietly at their desk with a book or magazine during DEAR or
Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) time, we might see them flip a page every minute
or so, but we can’t see what’s happening inside their heads. We don’t have evidence of how they’re making
meaning of the text, the specific ways they’ve grown as readers, or what they’re
struggling with as they read. Without
that information, we can’t teach them how to get better and we can’t be sure
that – even if they read every day – all students are becoming better readers
this week than they were the one before.”
With knowing already before school begins that we have only
180 days to do the best we can with the time we have, it is vital that we
utilize the most effective methods possible.
I want to know that my students are growing. I want to see evidence of them applying what
they are learning in their independent reading.
I want to give this year all I’ve got.
I want to give them independent reading with support.
Sincerely,
Dawn
