I read Section 2: Why Not? What Works? It goes through the best practices to support independent reading, backed up by research. I can remember when I was in school we had to read silently for 20-30 minutes every day. I don't remember having any support like the book discusses. It suggests small groups, student led conferences, accountability, and reading aloud to teachers regularly, among others. We can't just simply go tell our students to go read a book and then not have any kind of follow up. This does not produce confident readers. I can implement something such as this in my classroom by allowing my students to tell me what they think about the book based on illustrations, instead of words. Then, I can read it aloud to them.
I loved how this section discussed classroom libraries as well. It was a great follow-up of our September class about classroom libraries. A couple things I took away from it:
- Include more informational texts
- ask my students what kind of books they might like to see in the library area.
- Have at least 7 books per student.
- Numerous levels of reading
Combined with what I learned in September about classroom libraries, I am planning to create a Donor's Choose Grant to increase the effectiveness of my own classroom library. I plan to have more books, including informational texts.
What a great idea to write a Donors Choose grant! Lots of people like to fund grants for books. Like you, I remember DEAR time where I read for 20-30 minutes, but there was no instruction/conferring during that time. I like how you recognize that you can still confer with your students--it just might look a little different. Thanks for sharing these insights!
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