I'm glad my points felt so awesome to you. And we are all going to want
to see how this works out. :-)
Here is a little more of my thinking: I belong to a book sharing group
(which I started, and for which I was very selective on the people
involved). There are about eight of us and we meet once a month. We all
read whatever we want and then come together to just share what we've
read, whatever it is. Name a genre and at least one of us has read and
shared. What's interesting though, is that with all the sharing of
what's in the books and our impressions, we have also branched out into
discussions of politics, religion, local issues, specific authors,
death, Alzheimer's (one person in our group lost a husband to this
insidious disease and we all shared the grief from its onset to his
passing a couple of years later), food, art, ..... in other words....
you name it. Boy, do we make connections!
What I'm thinking is that the book sharing part..... voluntary
sharing.... is so valuable and so complex and can teach so much.
I was just thinking a while ago that some of the best teaching I've
done was when I was not "teaching" at all.
:-)
Renee
On Jul 1, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Mark & Rachele' Thummel wrote:
Renee--You make several AWESOME points--thank you! I do need to
change my thinking on the whole silent reading approach and see it as
an advantage. I guess I get frustrated with teachers who I see using
that time to "get things done"--which is not what I have chosen to do
with that time when I've given it in the past. Also, I just see so
many of these struggling readers lacking in basic comprehension
skills, so I've decided in the past to replace that "silent reading"
time with a more structured approach. Students are certainly doing a
lot of reading in this approach, but not as much self-selected--which
is what I want them to get "hooked" on. Many middle schools have 2
periods to teaching reading and writing . . . whereas I'm limited to
just one. So this is an added complication to make it through my
curriculum. I'd love to add another class . . . but it might be a
struggle.
Then of course there are the students who are scrambling to find a
book two minutes before class and reading something different every
time. So I'm thinking that if I restructure my approach to silent
reading, I might get better results. I'm planning on doing a "coffee
shop" format with my 9th graders this year--allowing them a modified
reading time. I thought that I would alternate weeks--one day a week
they would silent read self-selected materials and the next week they
would share in a group with coffee/cocoa/cider?! We have
gender-grouped our 9th graders, so I will have 23 girls. I have never
taught to just one gender, but since I will be doing this, I thought
I'd try to make it a bit "girlie". Thank you for your ideas!
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Renee" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 7:54 AM
To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group"
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Silent Sustained Reading
Hi there Mark and/or Rachele'
I think one of the reasons that some teachers struggle with the
concept of SSR is that it seems like "wasted time" or "time not well
spent" or "time that is better used for something more explicit and
direct" and I see that coming through in your comment that having SSR
on one day a week would add up to almost 7 weeks of silent reading
in class. But here's a thought.... that's a GREAT use of seven
weeks! Time for students to learn to enjoy reading on their own...
something that will stay with them forever, something that might
turn some non-readers into readers (and I'm not talking about
competency, I'm talking about choice). But if it were me, I would
turn it around, and have the SSR day be on Monday instead of Friday,
because then the reading on Monday could serve as personal
information from each student to add to whatever discussions
happened during the week.
What if, for example, Monday was also a "book sharing" kind of day,
where students read silently and independently for 3/4 of the period,
something of their own choosing, and then met in small groups to
just share with a few other students what they are reading? What if,
after this got started, you started throwing out targeted questions
for discussion in these small groups? For example, perhaps on one
Monday you could suggest that students talk to each other about any
visuals that popped up while they were reading, and on another
Monday you might suggest that students tell others about any
connections they made while reading.
I think it's hard for many of us to see this as a good use of time,
but I'm with the person who said that SSR would be the last thing she
would give up. I worked in a school where everyone stopped to read
for 20 minutes every day.... and in our case, that included teachers,
the principal, the secretary, etc. I read all of Fountas & Pinnel's
Guided Reading and Lucy Calkins' The Art of Teaching Writing during
that time. I do not see it as wasted. Rather, I saw it as myself
modeling reading for students. I did not worry whether or not they
were really reading, unless I saw someone just turning pages, or
obviously not engaged. Then I would quietly prompt them to please
read or, if they were making noise, that they were interrupting my
reading time. It only took a few weeks into this system for nearly
all students to be on task most of the time, and I never, ever
considered this to be a waste of time. But then, we had
administrators who supported it, and that's a key thing.
Renee
On Jun 30, 2009, at 6:11 PM, Mark & Rachele' Thummel wrote:
I struggle with the Silent Sustained Reading as well . . . and I
was wondering what you all thought about it at the upper levels. I
teach a section of 7th grade and 9th grade English. In both
classes I'm expected to teach reading and writing in 55 minutes--we
don't get a period of "reading" and a period of "writing". I would
love to have my students silent read, but I always feel as though
I'm "giving up" valuable writing and group literature time. I do
teach with a teacher who has her students read all period on Fridays
. . . but when I add that up, that's almost 7 weeks of silent
reading in class! The added frustration is that students aren't
reading outside of school, even when there is a grade attached--so
I feel as though for some of these students, the only time they are
reading is when it's "carved out" of class time. As I recall, the
research says that for "struggling readers," the best thing to have
them do is read. But when you only have 1 period to do reading and
writing, I feel as though using "reading time" to do reading
strategies is more valuable. But I'm interested to know what other
middle/upper level teachers are doing about outside reading and
SSR?
--------------------------------------------------
From: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 12:01 PM
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [MOSAIC] Silent Sustained Reading
As teachers, do?you think that Silent Sustained Reading
improves?individual reading scores on standardized tests??
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isolated class, and into the one humanity." ~ Paul Goodman
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