Cindy Black Post #4 - Why Not? What Works? Moss Section 2

Independent reading does matter and I believe we give our students several opportunities to do so both in and outside of school. We set aside daily time in the classroom for IR of the students choice. We monitor the time and walk around checking on the students so that they have the chance to ask questions about what they are reading and also words they may need help sounding out. We also ask questions about the book and conference with them. An outside opportunity gives each child a weekly folder with five books in it to take home on Monday and return on Friday. They are able to read these books at home and draw a picture about the books they read. Being in kindergarten the students do not have to take any online quizzes just illustrate on a piece of paper something that they take away from the book. Students also are able to bring books from home for us to read aloud to the class. This really gets the students excited and want to continue to bring in books for our class to share. Moss states that reading outside of school students achieved better on standardized tests than kids who did not.

Practice makes perfect so given the opportunities effectively and correctly allows students to develop background knowledge, improves reading comprehension, and will expand vocabulary. At such an early age we have to give these students choices that interest them so that we can keep them wanting more and more time to read. After starting at only two minutes daily at the beginning of the year we have successfully accomplished to a 20 minute mark today. That is a long time to keep five year olds still and reading books. We have really worked hard this year on our library in our classroom making it more inviting for them to use and enjoy. Moss states, “Libraries are essential”. Also, role playing in kindergarten allows students to become more engaged and allows them to act out the books we read. All this combined gives students many opportunities and betters them as readers only to make them more successful and start them off to a great early start in school.