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Encouraging Summer Reading
Many who follow my blog and podcasts know that I discourage free reading time or independent reading time during the school day. That’s not because I don’t think reading practice is important, but because kids learn more from the directed reading activities that teachers should be providing within their ELA, social studies, and science classes. Of course, it makes sense to have books available for when kids finish school lessons early. But setting aside 20 minutes a day for classroom reading is not a good use of instructional time. It takes a lot of reading practice to improve reading achievement. Even summer ...
What does the Easter Bunny have in common with the independent reading level?
Teacher question: I know you criticize the instructional reading level. But what about the independent reading level? Should we make sure that when children are reading on their own that they select books at their independent level or doesn’t that matter? Shanahan response: Back in the 1940s, Emmet Betts was trying to figure out how to improve reading instruction. The idea of matching books to students’ learning needs had floated around for decades in the research community. The 1910-1920s had ushered in reading tests and readability formulas, which provided clear scientific evidence that both books and children varied in difficulty (books) and ...