Caroline Josey Post #2 Miller Chapter 2

To grow as independent readers, students need

·         Classroom time to read

·         To choose what they read

·         Explicit instruction about what, why, and how readers read

·         To read a lot: a large number of books and variety of texts

·         Access to texts

·         Teacher monitoring, assessment, and support during IR

·         To talk about what they read

I feel that my students get most of this during their independent reading time. However, they do not get to choose everything they read. Miller says “Students need to be able to choose what they read.” I do not totally agree with this statement. My students are allowed to get four books from the library and three of the four have to be on or slightly above their instructional reading level and one book can be any book of their choice. I do this because I have several students reading on a 4^th and 5th grade level and they are getting books on a first grade level and vice versa. I have had one student read the same book about three times a day since the first day of school. If I let him, he would read the same book all day every day until summer break. Shamefully, I hid the book from him.

“Core reading programs don’t provide that “volumizing” boost that students, especially poorer readers, need.” ( Miller 24)

Some teachers rely only on basal readers to give students reading practices and it may work in some classrooms. I noticed, right of the bat, that it was not going to work in my classroom. The basal reader may have been on one of my students levels. For the others, it was either too hard or too easy and they were bored. I decided to offer a variety of texts during guided reading and so far they love it!