Lorraine Walker's September Blog Post: No More Independent Reading Without Support by Debbie Miller

Lorraine Walker’s September Blog Post: No More Independent Reading Without Support by Debbie Miller; Section 2: Why Not? What Works? Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It by Barbara Moss

The more I read about independent reading (IR) the more passionate I am about its importance. I have said this to many people: if I were back in the classroom, my teaching would be completely different. There wouldn’t be weekly or biweekly comprehension and vocabulary tests! There wouldn’t be weekly language tests! And spelling tests would come from the children’s mistakes in writing – a topic for another time. So my goal for this blog post is to inspire you to let go of the old and let them read! Plus, I am looking for anyone interested in making a change so that we could test what has been written about the outcomes of true IR.

The author states: At every grade level for all ability groups, individual schema-based learning, conceptual learning, and transactional learning produced the highest comprehension scores. Situated practice, workbook practice, and basal reader groups produced the lowest scores. She goes on to say that there are specific actions teachers must take to support students during their IR time. Conferencing with students about what they are reading is very important but it is not the only thing a teacher must do. The teacher needs to know what the students are interested in and their reading level in order to guide them toward ‘Just Right Books’. However, there is a place for reading more challenging books, but books that are too easy won’t help students grow as readers. The teacher must also model and monitor comprehension strategies. Standard 2 of the Inquiry-Based Literacy Standards for K-2 & 3-5 is: Transact with text to formulate questions, propose explanations, and consider alternative views and multiple perspectives.

We know that students need to read a wide variety of books from different genres. In this section on p.20 there is an example of a genre wheel. I know that fourth grade uses a genre quilt to encourage students to read from different genres. The teachers also confer with students to help them decide the genre of their book. Students have a description of the different genres on the back of the quilt as well. This could also be an inquiry lesson to teach the different genres.

The most common question: What about grades? In this section it states: These teachers required student accountability through products such as reading logs, written responses, and story summaries. They also used large- and small-group book discussions and individual student conferences; their monitoring of student progress was ongoing. I know that some teachers are using the Padlet as a way for students to share about what they are reading. I have also seen Padlet being used for students to demonstrate understanding of a skill such as character and applying it to a book they are reading for IR – this would be a way to gather a grade: √+ excellent, √ good, √- fair understanding of character. A rubric for what IR looks like can be developed between you and the students. Students could have reading response journals that show growth over time. This section of the book suggests the following: posters, graphic organizers, & written reactions.

For those interested in learning more about IR and what it looks like, read section 3 of this book.