Time is of the essence

Miller - Section 1 - Is There Enough Time? And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?

This section was very insightful and sounded familiar to what the way I thought about independent reading before this school year. I have always known the importance of independent reading in the classroom. I have always understood that students need time to read to become better readers. Something that I learned from this is the productivity piece of independent reading. The insight that this text provided about what conferencing and working with students as they read independently can bring, really helped me to understand that the time is not just a quiet time in my classroom for students (and myself for that matter) to enjoy. Since reading this chapter, I have begun to use our independent reading time much more wisely. I have learned a lot about my students and their schema, as well as their comprehension. I have modeled during some conferencing to students that have misinterpreted or misunderstood the lesson that was taught. For example, inferencing is a difficult skill to master. A student and I were conferencing and as the student read, they told me that they had an inference. Their inference was more of recall, so I was able to work with that student specifically on the skill for that week. I really look forward to this time in my classroom each day.