Kim Plexico: December Blog 5: Routman- Chapter 4- Teach with a Sense of Urgency

In the chapter, Teach with a Sense of Urgency, Regie Routman states the importance of making every moment in the classroom count.  It’s a simple statement and one that I like as a mission statement for life in general!  As teachers we are always mindful of where our students need to go during the school year and how little time we have to get them there.  With this in mind, we are constantly analyzing what we do in the classroom in order to make the needed changes to help our students to achieve their highest potential.  The key ingredient is student engagement!  We support students “in becoming more self-sustaining, thoughtful, independent readers and writers by spending time with shared and independent reading.”  The instruction consists of what kids need and not on the components of a literacy program.   Over time, I have gotten away from making class books with my students.  We write and make books, but mostly as individuals.  The author talked about making books as a shared writing activity and then using the class book to create a book to use during guided reading and word work activities.  I plan on using this in January with my students during our study of the Arctic.  I have been creating books to read and I like the idea of the students helping to create the book for the unit.  By using this model for book making, I will use the plan as denoted on page 44 in the book where you use Demonstration, Shared Demonstration, Guided Practice, and Independent Practice.  As kindergartners, it is so true that they “need strategies, confidence, and knowledge to continue learning on their own.”  Within the Literacy Block, the students have opportunities to develop their language which is also a key ingredient to becoming a reader. The author states “language play, hearing lots of stories, and reading and writing stories and poems are essentials to children becoming readers.” By reading with young children and promoting productive talk about the stories, the children have better language development than those children without these opportunities.  I use “turn and talk” in the classroom a lot in order to give the children a chance to develop oral language, vocabulary, and comprehension.  As a rule, the author says that the students should engage in reading 80% of the time and writing 20% of the time.  She also cautions us as teachers not to “overdo it”!  In conclusion, she reminds us that “only by teaching all of our students with a sense of urgency and joy can we hope to challenge them in appropriate and meaningful ways.” That is my goal for the new year~ to engage students in meaningful ways and bring the joy back to their learning.