Routman's Chapter 8: Emphasize Share Reading
This chapter was a little bit of a tug of war with the educator inside of me. Throughout the reading I found a few things in particular that really caught my attention. First, that shared reading should especially be done starting in second grade...pause for thought. When I taught second grade we used the Basal reader and had essentially a shared reading time every day - maybe some of the questions weren't structured the same way as the questions in the examples that Routman shared, or the lesson itself wasn't as diverse as those that were given as examples; however reading the same text while students had copies, me reading and them following along, stopping periodically and asking questions then doing some sort of follow up with the text after the story was always part of my daily lessons in second grade.
In kindergarten things are quite different though. When I continued reading I came across Routman's ideas for kindergarten: that they should primarily be rereading new, familiar, and favorite texts, using big books, maybe even a pointer to track reading, then follow this time with guided reading or independent reading. When imagining this in action I can't help but reflect on when I was in Kindergarten - my teacher with a Little Miss Muffet poem written on chart paper with homemade puppets, a star pointer, and a craft that followed. Not to offend my amazing kindergarten teacher but wow, how things changed. With expectations what they are now, and the resources that are available: it is possible for students to have a copy of a text (I don't have student copies of many texts however I do know they exist for Kindergarten), teachers to have a big book, and for so many more skills to be taught during this time. But that tug of war is still taking place...we are working so hard to individualize instruction that it seems we have moved away from whole group shared reading - but to guided reading, small group reading programs, and even push-in/pull-out programs that help students with reading skills. With how busy we are, how can we possibly do guided reading, shared reading, and independent reading daily?
I do love shared reading time, I do read alouds daily (unless this time is otherwise interrupted), and my students love being read to. There are so many skills you can reach through a good read aloud, as well as observations that you can make to help assess students' needs. I enjoyed reading through several of the examples Routman had in her book about what her shared reading time looked like in the upper grades - I would have liked to see her dialog and a more detailed layout of what her lesson would have looked like with Kindergarten to see how closely my read alouds (without group texts or big books) are to her shared reading times.
This chapter has confirmed that doing all three: guided reading (ReadWell), shared reading (whole group lesson), and independent reading is one of the more reliable ways to ensure that my students are getting the most out of our reading block.
We had a conversation about this, Kelly, but I will go ahead and share a few thoughts from our conversation here. You are correct in your estimation . . . all three are so valuable!!! However, if you do not get to every single one every single day . . . that is OK!!!! If your day is full of lessons and activities that are best practice, then you can be assured . . . you are doing a good job. You will NOT get to everything every day. It's a fact. However, if you are confident you are using your time wisely, then you can rest assured you are doing your job and doing it well! :)
ReplyDeleteI echo what Kelli said--all three benefit readers, but the world will not end if we can't get all 3 in in one day! Shared reading is done in all kinds of ways in K that I never would have thought of as "shared reading," like reading poems and singing songs from lyrics on the PB... you are doing marvelous things! :-)
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