Reading In The Wild
Personally I really enjoyed the first chapter of Miller’s text. I could really relate to her when she talked about the student that was faking to read; sadly this use to be the type of student I was. One of my main goals as a teacher will be wanting kids to be upset that silent reading time is over, not happy like many are today in classrooms. One of my favorite things I learned was the independent reading time observation. You observe the students during silent reading and you can notice if they are fake reading or if they are really reading and comprehending the material. The thing I love about this is that it can help improve student’s behavior not only in reading, but also in many other subjects. This tool will hopefully make more students pay attention to their material and actually get their work done.
Some ideas that I could find challenging is being able to find the “fake” reader during silent reading time. It may be hard to watch every student during their reading time so they do not fake read. One way I could help this challenge is to not tell the students which one I am watching this week so that they never know.
I am very excited to teach reading, but I do have some fears. One thing I am most excited about is to see my students love of reading grow; how excited they are when they finish a book and how willing they are to read in their free time. My biggest fear is that some of my students will not enjoy reading as much as other. They will be the ones “fake” reading during silent reading time and just not want anything to do with reading. This is one of my biggest fears because I had many friends that hated to read and I saw how it effected their academic achievement later on in life.
One Reply to “Reading In The Wild”
I really like your ideas on this blog post! I totally agree with you on the silent reading and I do think it is very important because reading goes hand-in-hand with every subject, as you noted and we know about from Common Core. I can tell you really read into the idea of the “fake reader” and I know that I have had a problem with this before when I volunteered in a second grade class. One of the students would pretend to be reading and then look up at me and wink, as it I wouldn’t talk to the teacher about it. Needless to say, she dealt with this issue promptly haha. So, I am definitely with you on my biggest fear being that students will not actually be reading during this time as well and I think to solve it that we should just see what kinds of books they would like on Goodreads or other sites! :) Have a great weekend!