Rhonda Cranford October blog post #3 - ""Why Not? What Work? By Barbara Moss

IR, SSR, DEAR, USSR all of these acronyms are names for reading time; a time when only reading is to take place.  IR is define by Gambrell as a time students spend reading self-selected texts. Many times you could enter the classroom and see the teacher also reading. This was to model reading so children would see an adult reading.  Children cannot learn to read by watching someone else do it.  That would be like learning to ride a bike just by watching some else ride their bike.  Both of these are ridiculous.  It takes practice to do either. IR has faded from the classroom because children do not learn to read by watching others or just by looking at words and turning pages which often happens during this reading time. This is especially true with young children who do not know how to select appropriate books for themselves, and who have not discovered that they can read.  In kindergarten and first grade there are many varying levels of reading.  Some children need to read pictures and others are reading chapter books.  It is within this IR time and in mini lessons that the teacher teaches the students how to select appropriate books.  Through conferences and modeling in small groups lessons the teacher is able to demonstrate and teach how to select an appropriate text.  The study by Cavrer and Liebert in 1995 suggest that just letting students read easy books at or below grade level contributed to a lack of reading progress.  There was no challenge, there was not growth.  It seems that reading harder text may benefit student appropriate book.  This is the beginning of conferencing with students about what they are reading.  Exposing students to a variety of genres for them to read will also help increase achievement and will expose students to a variety of possibilities there for their interest.   I hope to use the Genre Wheel figure 2.2 in our text in my classroom to encourage a variety of reading.  As readers we seem to go back to books that catch our attention.  We need to expose young children to the different genres out there so that they know what is exciting to them as readers.   The main point about IR is not for the teacher to sit and watch the children read.  It is to actively engage with the students to discuss what is being read, to guide students in appropriate choices, to counsel children in ways that will help them decode new unfamiliar words as they read.  IR is a busy time with a great deal happening it is a time for guidance not just a time for “free-reading”.  With the guidance, conferences, and support of the teacher the students will become better proficient readers.  It is for the non-reader in first grade to become a reader.  It is for the well advanced reader in first grade to become a reader with better comprehension, understanding, and word attack skills.  Many times the advanced reader calls words but doesn’t know their meaning so many times comprehension is lacking.  Or they do not know how to decode an unfamiliar so they skip it and again understanding may be lacking.  If they are taught through mini conferences how to break down an unknown word those skills will stick with them and they will become a better reader.    A classroom of reading, discussing, and sharing is a sign of a classroom of learning.  That is our goal as teachers to have a classroom of learning. I may have to read ahead to plan how to set up a “new” classroom environment of reading and learning.  What happens throughout the day, what questions are good modeling questions to have discussions about our text?  The next section holds some of these answers