Billie Wiles-Blog #2 Chapter 4

Chapter 4 in Reading Essentials by Regie Routman is entitled “Teach with a Sense of Urgency.”  As I read this chapter and reflected on my years of teaching, I feel like I have always taught with a sense of urgency.  There is a fine line between rushing and urgency.  I think the line is drawn between staying on task to complete a task while working carefully versus rushing through something haphazardly just to be finished.  In the first twenty or so years of teaching, I always placed an agenda on the board with the times and tasks that were to be completed.  I believe a large part of fulfilling that sense of urgency is making the students aware and partly responsible for the tasks that are to be completed during a day.  As we completed them, I would check them off or erase the completed tasks so the students could monitor their own use of time.  I found this to be much more effective than putting a list of standards on the board that the students did not understand.  In recent years, due to the demand of posting standards, I have stopped putting an agenda on the board and just posting standards.  As the students come in the room in the morning, I tell them the tasks that must be completed that day so they still have a feeling and responsibility of ownership.  I don’t feel it is as effective as placing the visual of an agenda on the board.

On page 43, Routman lists The Top Five Things I Do To Ensure Students Become Excellent Readers.  The list of five things included demonstrating that the teacher is a reader, provide an excellent classroom library, let students choose books they want to read and allow time for them to read, teach strategies need to know to be successful readers, and evaluate students regularly, giving them feedback and helping them set goals.  I see Roebuck Elementary with its literacy initiatives moving towards these goals as a whole school.  Roebuck Readers and teaching from the Reading Workshop perspective is implementing these goals.  I feel I am offering my students these opportunities and providing students with the time, feedback and help in setting goals.  When students are aware of these goals and take ownership for their own reading success, they take more pride in what they are doing and enjoy working towards the goals more.  I am a strong believer that no matter what age the child is, they need to know, not only what they are doing at the time, but what the end result should be and the plan for getting there.

Through teacher demonstration and shared demonstration, students have the ability to assess their own performance in comparison to others’ performance.  By modeling, you work towards more and more independence on the part of the student.  The analogy of giving someone a fish compared to teaching them how to fish came to mind as I read about the scaffolding and working towards independence.  In the beginning we may give the students the fish but the end goal is to teach them how to fish so they may grow in their reading and become lifelong readers.  When we identify the level students are on and allow them to feel success at that level, they feel a sense of pride and gain the confidence they need to progress in their reading experiences.

The ratio of 80% reading to 20% writing was eye opening for me.   I always thought they were more equal because of the amount of time it takes to go through the writing process.   However, if you consider the amount of reading we do across the curriculum, including in Math, I realized that we probably read more than what I thought we did.  That ratio will stick with me as I plan instruction for my students and the emphasis we need to place on the amount of time a student spends reading every day