I have also thoroughly enjoyed the book group that I belong to and have been
thinking about it a lot as I get ready to approach my 9th grade English
class of girls. I have made great connections with women that I didn't know
very well, and it's been great for me to get away from home to talk with
intelligent women about all sorts of topics. I love thinking about reading
a new book each month. . . and I'd like to establish an environment where my
students (girls next year) WANT to come to "book group" to share and listen.
Jan--thanks for the link to Gardiner . . . I'm going to definitely look into
that! I like the analogy of reading and running--as a runner myself, I
seriously suffer if I don't train on a daily level. I can't imagine running
5 miles just once a week! So I can see the connection of establishing good
reading habits through consistent and daily reading. I just still struggle
with the concept of only having 40 minutes left to cover reading strategies,
vocabulary, and all the writing elements that are in my curriculum . . . .
I'm going to take the summer to think about this! Further ideas are
certainly helpful:)
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Renee" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 11:43 AM
To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group"
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Silent Sustained Reading
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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waiting for the rat to die." ~ Anne Lamott
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