"Creating Classrooms Where Readers Flourish", served as a perfect example of offering choice to motivate students to read. The author of the article, a high school language arts teacher, admits she does not assign class-wide novel units anymore, instead allowing students to choose from a wide range of books to read that meets their interest and reading level. This serves as an incredibly inclusive strategy as it allows students to read books that interest them as well as meets the diverse needs of readers in her classroom.
I also like how she created time in her class for independent reading, which her students loved. When I taught at a summer reading program my students loved our 15-minute DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) Time, where they spent 15 miuntes reading silently of any book of their choice. They would get mad at me when I would cut it out of schedule if we were running behind or had a special assembly.
Some questions I had when reading this article is how this "choice reading" fits into the Common Core. When teaching history I had very specific events I had to cover as well as they fit into larger thematic areas, is this similar for language arts? Do teachers have to teacher specific books or is it more of larger, themes with more vague content standards that can be met through an array of books.
I was also wondering how one can measure student learning during silent reading. I have heard Dr. Konrad, a professor in the Special Education program, argue against silent reading because students who struggle with reading could sit and pretend they are reading, without actually reading. While I disagree with her in using silent reading, as I have seen in be a massive motivator for my students (all of whom were considered "at risk" readers) how can silent reading be used as effiectenly as possible to help, not only motivate special needs students, but also improve their reading skills?
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