Literacy needs of  adolescents in their own words

After reading our assigned articles last week I had a huge takeaway. I realized that we as teachers don’t rely on our students input enough. As teachers we sometimes think that our way is what’s best for our students because we see what they need to work on most. In order to truly understand what a child needs we have to incorporate the child in the process, find out what methods the student prefers to use, what methods, if any give them anxiety or they just don’t understand. As educators our job is not to just teach, it’s to listen and understand as well.

Sustained Silent Reading

Silent reading time can be wonderful if properly planned. One of my big takeaways from the article on sustained silent reading is that you have to have a plan in place for incidents that come up. It doesn’t seem like one should really plan for reading time but it is important. What happens when a student has no book, a student who decides they don’t like their book, a student who would rather talk to their neighbors. Before our silent reading time begins we must decide how we’ll handle these situations. Are we going to give consequences to students who aren’t reading or will we lovingly redirect them participate in the act of reading? Should we have a system of holding students accountable for reading? Most importantly how can I ensure I have books that interest the students. The most important takeaways from this article was choice. Students deserve the option of choice to feed the fire for their reading lives. When students are given an opportunity to pick a book of their choice they’re more likely to finish the book and move on to the next. Forcing a student to read a particular book can only lead to frustration with the book and teachers.