The second section of No More Independent Reading Without Support by Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss is split into six sections. The first three sections deal with the research surrounding independent reading (IR). The first section deals with student achievement. The next section addresses common reasons for not doing IR. The next section focuses on Common Core.
If your school and district are like mine, they will let you try out many ideas so long as there is research behind it. The research clearly shows that IR improves: oral reading accuracy, reading rate, reading expression, and reading comprehension. This improvement only occurs “if teachers scaffold by modeling and teaching students to self-select books from a variety of genres at their IR levels, confer with students, monitor and provide feedback to students, and make students accountable for their reading”( Moss 12). In the age of SLOs, aren’t these goals exactly what every teacher is trying to do? I am thankful that my ELA co-teacher gives our sixth graders time each day to read a self-selected book. Barbara Moss states that “Students read more, understand more, and are more likely to continue reading when they have an opportunity to read.” (Moss 18). Each week I need to ask myself how I can add choice to the content in my classroom. This week, we are learning about ancient Egypt. Instead of a whole group activity, students will split up into expert groups to learn about one section of Egyptian culture/history. There will be biographies on famous pharaohs, info texts on building pyramids, historical fiction about daily life. I even found many Egyptian folktales to add to this mix! They will read and discuss the texts together and figure out a way to share their knowledge with the rest of the class.
The next section of the text focuses on Common Core. Even though we don’t use Common Core in SC anymore, I was struck by the statistics about the lack of informational texts used in schools. “In a study of second-fourth graders experiences with informational texts, , second graders experienced one minute per day of exposure to this text type, while third and fourth graders averaged only sixteen minutes” (Moss 26). This amount shocks me! The text went on to say that read alouds are rarely informational. I am committed to changing these numbers in my classroom. How can we expect students to master informational texts which are the bulk of the reading they will do as an adult if we give them little exposure to the genre? My goal will be to use informational read alouds more often. This week, I have chosen a biography of Moses to go with our study of ancient Egypt.
Often, I skip over the research because quite frankly it bores me. I am challenged by the numbers these authors have included in their book. Now, I know why this book is part of the series “Teach This, Not That.”
Pretty awesome to see how much you are getting from your book and already putting some of it into action!
ReplyDeleteMore informational read alouds stuck with me! I'll have to try this!
ReplyDeleteHi Danielle,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful response to the second section of Miller and Moss's text, No More Independent Reading Without Support. You shared how independent reading is supported by a body of educational research but only if it is implemented effectively. I've long believed that it isn't what we are doing, but how we are doing it that determines if a practice is effective or not. You shared a compelling quote by Moss, "f teachers scaffold by modeling and teaching students to self-select books from a variety of genres at their IR levels, confer with students, monitor and provide feedback to students, and make students accountable for their reading” that explains without instructional support, choice for our readers, on-going feedback and formative assessment independent reading doesn't work. I also appreciate you pointing out the importance of including a variety of informational texts in our classroom libraries for students to choose from.