Jordan Varn: Chapter Four: Teach with a Sense of Urgency

Urgency. When I first read this word, my heart felt like it skipped a beat. Teach with urgency. Not a minute wasted. At first, I felt rushed and like a massive weight was weighing on my shoulders. Then, I stop and thought about the word in a sense of reading. I rethought my initial idea of this word, and my shoulders began to relax and new sense of wonder and excitement over took my mind. Students need to learn to read with "urgency". Students need to learn to fall in love with reading and not want to waste a minute while reading their books. In chapter four, Routman discusses how and why we, as teachers, should teach our students with urgency. When students enter fifth grade, they have developed "reading habits". Reteaching students reading behaviors is a daunting task. However, one thing students want to do more than anything is read. And read! And read! If students already have a desire to read, it is my job to lead them to become better and stronger readers. I really enjoyed the lists of things that teachers do to ensure that students become excellent readers. Things that stuck out were "evaluate students regularly", "give students time to talk about their reading", and "set aside a significant block of time for reading". Something that my current class also likes to do is talk! Why not use all the time I have with these students and have them discuss their books with their classmates? This is a great way to have reluctant readers become more interested in reading because they are more likely going to listen to their peers than their teacher. Another thing I need to be sure of is giving my students more time to actually READ. When most students go home, they don't read like they need to do. In my classroom, I can ensure they have the correct environment with many choices of literature that are interesting and engaging. The last thing that stood out was to evaluate students regularly. One thing I noticed when I started teaching was how students loved getting a chance to read with me. Every day they would say "Can I read to you?" As I have started in fifth grade, students are less likely to ask this because they are becoming more mature independent readers. However, they should still be held accountable. Reading conferences are key to evaluating students with their independent reading. The student brings the book he or she is currently reading in that moment. You can quickly listen to the student to see how well his or her fluency and comprehension is with the level of book. While students are reading independently, I need to use the most of my time and teach with urgency and make a difference in as many readers each day.