Time! Time! Time! If you
ask a teacher what they need more in their classrooms, 9 times out of 10 they
will always say time. Section 1 in No
More Independent Reading without Support, really helped open my eyes into
how much time I spend on transitions.
Something as simple as lining up can eat up valuable minutes of
instruction. Transitions is another area
where we lose precious time. This is an
area I am really trying to work on with my students this year. After doing some self-reflections, I really
wanted to focus on making time for my independent reading. In the past my students would read as a part
of daily 5 while I was working with a group, after they finished their work,
and every morning after morning work. To
“prove” to me that they read, the students were responsible for taking an AR
test or completing a reading response based off a skill we had already
learned. After reading this section, I
now realize that this is still is not providing the information to help me
understand them as a reader. Passing an
AR test or writing some sentences down about a book doesn’t help me look inside
their brain, it doesn’t let me see their strengths and weaknesses. I look forward to conferencing with my
students during their independent reading time and seeing what kind of reader
they are.
Time is a bugger! Yet just as we decide how to use our time on the weekends we have to take a close look at how we use our time during our school day. I think of weekends when my husband is home. All of a sudden the cleaning and other chores aren't that important unless we do them together. If the most important things in our lives come from connections with others, then conferencing immediately shoots to the top of the list of things to do. Everything else that we set up in our classroom leads to this precious goal, to get to know and use our time to work with our students. The Daily 5 and other workshop structures are only as good as they provide the opportunities for our readers and writers to read, write, and grow with the support that we can give them. Then all of our time is used well.
ReplyDeleteTime always seems to be on backorder! :-) I love that you are critically analyzing your reading activities. Conferencing is a great way to hold readers accountable--and I think it gives you a lot more information than an AR/skill test!
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