March/April Blogpost  (Lisa L. Smith)  CDC

“Teach with a Sense of Urgency” from Reading Essentials by Reggie Routman

Making every second count in the classroom and in instruction is a key element to ensuring that we are helping students to reach their potential as readers.  What exactly do we need to do to make sure we are developing excellent readers? 

·         Introduce all kinds of genres

·         Have multiple books the students like and that are at their levels

·         Read good literature to them

·         Share our love of literature

·         Give students time to talk or share about their reading

·         Set aside significant time blocks for reading

·         Give children choice

·         Tell students that they are readers

·         Make reading fun

·         Model

·         Link reading to the curriculum

The above are key things we as teachers can do to ensure that students have the best possible opportunity to grow as readers.  We must be the model for students then share demonstrations with students, allow guided practice and finally independent practice.  It is this scaffolding that will help them grow to reach their potential.  The demonstration process can happen while the teacher thinks aloud as she reads books, perhaps wondering and looking for questions to the wonderings.  Later in shared demonstration and guided practice, the students are invited to work with the teacher or a partner or group then do the same thing.  The process is then taken a step further when students are allowed to independently practice what they have learned. 

The article further talks about integrating skills into curriculum instead of teaching skills in isolation.  It is essential to focus on language acquisition and not letters and letter sounds alone.  It is amazing how the skills come up in books and charts about the topic of interest. 

Interactive reading which encompasses allowing the students to talk about a book that is currently being read, not just after the book is read, allows deeper comprehension and engagement.  When reading stories to the students, I use it as a time to focus on author’s craft, story structure, and other literary elements.  I might ask questions like, based on what we already know, what do you think the problem or conflict of the story might be? 

Writing is also a key element in the process.  There should be a deep connection between the reading and the writing.  The author gives multiple examples of good practice of reading-writing activities. 

I found this chapter to be very enlightening.  Not that I didn’t know many of the things that were said, but it was affirming that I was on the right track in many areas.  However, it gave me pause that I do not always connect reading and writing as well as I could.  I enjoyed looking at the examples that were provided and hope to implement some of them into my instructional practice.  I think I do a good job with the read aloud element, modeling, demonstration, and shared demonstration.  I even think that I am doing an adequate, but not amazing job with the guided practice.  Where I am sorely lacking is setting up appropriate structure for independent practice and monitoring the growth during that process.  This will be an area that I will look to improve as I continue to grow as a literacy educator.