Chrissa Hurley

Miller (2013), Section 1: Not This: Is There Enough Time? And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?

 “Independent reading in silence without the kind of support described in this book means these children suffer in silence”…. I am a special education teacher who provides support to nonreaders who often avoid reading and are not supported at home by a literacy rich environment. The only reading opportunities provided for my students occur in the classroom. It is of vital importance to ensure their success as future readers by providing quality independent reading experiences that encourage “real reading” as opposed to “fake reading”. My students often become professional fake readers who play the part of a real reader.

Amanda Stephens-Blog 4-November: Kindergarten - Share Your Reading Life- Routman (Chapter 3)

Amanda Stephens- Blog 4-November: Kindergarten- Share Your Reading Life-Chapter 3 (Routman)

          When I think about reading, I think about all of the books I have read for pleasure. I think about all of the books I have chosen that interest me. I think about the books that sparked my imagination.  I can’t imagine never reading for fun.  That thought just seems so foreign to me but unfortunately, as Routman states, the thought of “reading for pleasure rarely comes up without some prodding” when discussing books.  This is so sad.  How can you not read anything for fun?!  Routman encourages teachers to share their own personal library with students to model good reading habits. “When we make our reading lives explicit to our students, their reading lives expand in many directions.” (Routman 2003)  By sharing our own personal library with our students we are showing them that it is okay to read for pleasure, it is okay to choose from a variety of genres, and that it is okay to read something other than books.  I think that Routman offers wonderful ideas on how to encourage your students to develop a “Reading Life”.  Some of my favorite ideas for encouraging my students are a class top ten list, having students bring in books from their personal library to share, making a favorite class author section in my classroom library, and creating book reviews.  I especially like the book review idea.  I would love to have each of my kindergartners write a simple book review telling why they like a particular book (of their own choosing).  It would be so much fun to let the students share these with the class and then display them on a bulletin board or in the hallway. It might also be fun to video these book reviews in the form of a commercial and let the children watch themselves reviewing their books. What a great way to get them excited about the upcoming book fair!  It would also give me more insight as to what type of books each of my students enjoy. This will help me to help them in choosing high interest books.  I plan to share more about my “Reading Life” with my young readers and hopefully encourage them to love reading for fun just like I do!

Kim Plexico-Blog 4-November: Kindergarten- Routman- Chapter 3- Share Your Reading Life

November Blog: Kim Plexico- Kindergarten- Routman- Chapter 3- Share Your Reading Life 

A quote from the book that struck a chord when I read it was "too often reading becomes a chore, something they dreaded."  The author asked some children why they read, and they gave the usual academic benefits, but no one stated that they read for pleasure. I thought how sad, but how true!  "If they don't read for pleasure, they are not going to make it a life-long habit or goal." For struggling readers, it is important to find out what they are passionate about then use this to help them find books they would enjoy reading. I used this strategy with my own fifth grade son the other night when he struggling to find a book to read.  He wasn't interested in any of the books on our bookshelf or in his book bag. We talked about his love of sports and how he can find magazines, online articles, and newspapers to read. In other words, what you read does not always have to be in a book. Hopefully, this will encourage him to read for pleasure. As parents and teachers we have the power of books in our hands to show our children that reading can be fun!

My children often bring in books from home for me to read aloud to the class.  There is always a sense of excitement when I am reading their "personal book" or library book to their classmates.  As I read the chapter, it sparked an idea to build upon their excitement.  The author talked about showing the children a picture of her home library and discuss the importance of having a library in their home.  I will use this idea to introduce the concept of having a personal library where they place their personal books on a shelf in their home.   This weekend I will encourage them to bring in their favorite book from their personal library to share with our class.  With these books, we will have book talks, create a "best seller" bulletin board, and partner read. This will be a fun project to complete leading up to our school Book Fair the first week in December.  I am excited about sharing our love of reading with each other in our classroom! 

Laura Emory Post 4 Miller (2013) Section 2: Why Not? What Works

     Research shows that independent reading directly correlates to academic performance.  Debbie Miller tells us that independent reading helps to increase accuracy when reading orally, improve the rate of reading, and it helps with expression and comprehension.  She also tells us that a study found that students who read books outside of the school walls scored higher on standardized testing than those students who did not read at home.  The study also suggests that it is not just the act of reading, but the time spent reading.  Knowing the research and facts, why do more educators not place a high importance on independent reading?  Miller states that “teachers give lots of reasons for not doing IR, citing scarce instructional time, students who aren’t ready for reading on their own, or the difficulty of managing IR with a wide range of levels in classrooms.” 

     Independent reading should be planned for.  Students should be able to have classroom time to read independently, choose the books that they want to read, be taught why, what, and how we read, have access to a wide variety of books, be monitored and supported during their reading time, and should be given a chance to talk about what they are reading.  I love how she says that educators should have 7 books per child in their classrooms which equates to 300-600 books.  These books should be below, on, and above grade level and should be incorporate all of the different genres.  I also appreciate working in a district that places such a high importance on reading and provides us with some texts to have in the classrooms!

   The most important piece of information that I took away from this section is that teachers must be vigilant in being active participants in our students’ independent reading time.  We cannot sit back and watch or busy ourselves with the other duties of teaching, but rather sit with the students, engage conversations, monitor, adjust, encourage, and we also must teach the process.  During the D6 Literacy Day today I enjoyed learning about types of conferences to conduct with students during in independent reading time and I look forward to implementing them.  I will start immediately with the compliment conference.  

Lori Crumpton Post #4 November Routman Chapter 3:Share Your Reading Life

   I enjoyed so many of the ideas that I received from Routman’s Share Your Reading Life.  Chapter 3. I am going to incorporate many of the ideas.  I want to have each of my Horizons students have a chart inside their class notebooks that say What is Your Now Book? I would like for us to share what we are reading with each other.  I have thought about having a 10 minute Book Club. That would give us some time at the beginning of class for 2 or 3 students who are reading books they really enjoy to share that book with others. 

  I also like the idea for me to bring in my stack of books, and to share what I have read and am currently reading. I think it is important to share some of your reading interests with your students.  I would also like to post the Top Ten List in my classroom.  This would be the books that seem to be the student’s favorites. It can be the go to list for kids that are not sure what their next book might be.  I gained so many ideas from this article. It motivated me to come up with some of my own as well.

Sally Gaskins' Blog #3-Routman Ch. 12-You Only Have So Much Time

I've done something I've never allowed myself to do when reading a book...skipped ahead and read the last chapter first! Ok, so it's not such a big deal with a book like this (I would NEVER do that with fiction...what a waste of a good book). When I looked at the list of chapters in Regie Routman's book, Reading Essentials, I found the title of Chapter 12: You Only Have So Much Time was shouting "READ ME NOW!" I guess it's because that's the main thing I've been struggling with this year. How can I possibly teach all of the things in my lesson plans in the little bit of time I have each day?  I also thought it was interesting that an entire chapter at the beginning of the Miller book was devoted to this subject and I wanted to see how the two compared. What I have taken away from both is that the problem of not enough time is not going to go away. It's how we as teachers use the little bit of time we have that will make us effective teachers. After reading this chapter in Reading Essentials, which gave many more specific examples of how I can better use my time than the Miller text, I know that there is much room for improvement and I'm excited about putting to use the strategies Regie Routman suggests.


For example, I've been feeling like I'm doing my students a disservice by giving them the number of worksheets and "seat work" my grade level requires. When I, the new person on the team, approached the subject with my wonderful co-workers, I was relieved that they agreed with me. We planned to look into some new, better practices between now and Christmas with plans to start the New Year/2nd semester with more engaging, meaningful learning taking place in our classrooms. This chapter is one we will definitely use as a guide. I like Routman's suggestion to "continually ask yourself when planning work for students, How is this activity helping my students become more independent as readers, writers, and thinkers? If it's not, set it aside."


Another frustration I have right now is the amount of time I spend on school work outside of school. My family is frustrated with me, too, because I'm constantly grading papers, etc. It was nice to read in this chapter that it's important that teachers live an interesting life. Routman says, "You can't come to work each day enthusiastic about teaching if all you did the night before was grade papers. You want to be able to have dinner with a friend, go to a movie, read a book, cook for fun, reflect about what's just happened. We are not only role models for learning; we are role models for living." Well, I have young children at home so my list of interesting activities needs to involve them. I definitely don't want to look back on this time of my life with regret because I didn't spend more time with my children while they were young. They come first, so I need to start right now working on "doing less, more effectively."


A teacher named Robin Woods says near the end of the chapter, "I'm learning that good teaching doesn't have to mean lots of hours. Instead, it requires lots of thinking-thinking about what matters to kids, thinking about what kids need to know, and thinking about how they can be taken to the next level. My husband will now see me spend less time at school or grading papers and hear me think aloud more about my students and how I'm approaching instruction. I'd never really thought about how being a good teacher could mean having more time at home with my family." If I can get to that point, and I'm going to do my best to start very soon, I just might feel like teaching is what it was supposed to be for me, a dream job.

Allison Catto's December Blog Post #5 - Chapter 5, "Organinzing an Outstanding Classroom Library"

          I have always been fortunate in my teaching career to have a vast supply of books for my classroom library.  I know that the more children read and excellent classroom libraries often lead to the students doing better on standardized tests. 

          Due to my personality, everything in my life has to be organized, including my classroom library.  I agree with Routman in chapter 5 when he states that children read more when they have easy access to books, and the classroom libraries are well-designed, organized, and provide ample books to read.

          One way to improve your classroom library is to find out about the students’ reading interests.  Surveys can be given or simple discussions during conferencing can give you insight to their interests.  Many students like series of books because they learn the characters and find it easy to follow the story line.  Sharing enthusiasm for reading and talking about books will inspire and motivate your students to want to read even more.

          Classroom libraries will vary in many different ways.  An adequate library will have at least 200 books, but an excellent library will have more than a thousand.  As I stated earlier, I’ve always had close to a thousand books in my classroom libraries.  My books are arranged in baskets with color coded labels and stickers for easy attainability.  Students in my class use the Accelerated Reader program, so this system makes it easy and quick for students to pick books on their level and that they are interested in.  Within each level, there are ample books for students to pick from.  I keep all genres of books mixed together in the baskets so there are books that appeal to all reading preferences.  Since nonfiction is often preferred by students, especially boys, I plan on adding more nonfiction selections to my classroom library.  The school is purchasing each teacher 100 new books, and all 100 of mine will be nonfiction.  I think this will really excite my students when they see all of the new books to choose from. 

          One thing I’ve never done in my classroom is “advertise” books.  I do think this would be a good way to get to students interested in books they aren’t familiar with.  I particularly like two ways that Routman suggested to do this.  One way is to create best-seller lists of author and titles, and then share with others in the class.  Another way is to design posters, writing blurbs and reviews, and creating book jackets.  I plan on trying these ideas throughout the year to help motivate my students to read books that they may never have chosen by simply looking in the book baskets.