Erin Lee Blog 4: Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It

This chapter focused on the importance of independent reading in the classroom and strategies of how to incorporate it into the daily routine.  One of the main points the chapter started out discussing was that students need to be reading more in the classroom even though recent trends have been to take it out.  It showed that in various studies, students can achieve higher on standardized test than students who had little or no time for independent reading.  I feel independent reading is very important and it is something I have always tried to do on a daily basis. 
Even though I have always tried to do independent reading as a teacher, I will admit I do cut some corners of it in order to save time.  When I read over the sections of what practices are critical for effective independent reading, it only reminded me of the things I tend to leave out.  One of the main things I usually skip over is the share time.  I have never really left enough time during my independent reading block for students to talk about what they read.  I always feel that we are running behind during our ELA time and I want to make sure to give kids the time to read so I usually skip the share time so we can move on to the next thing to try and get everything in.  Another thing I usually don't do during independent reading time is let most of my kids pick books from the classroom library.  The main reason I for this is because I don't have a lot of books in my classroom library that are at the level of most of my students and I really want them reading books at their level during independent reading.  What I have them do instead is pick books from certain baskets that are leveled so that I know they are getting something they can read.  I know what levels the baskets represent but the kids do not so it doesn't embarrass anyone if they are a low reader.  The time I usually let kids read from the classroom library is during the time I work with small groups. 
I think there was a lot a valuable information about independent reading in this chapter.  Even someone like myself who has always done independent reading could learn something that would help enhance this time in the classroom.