Karilyn Parker - Blog Post 2 - Debbie Miller's Section 2 "WHY NOT? WHAT WORKS?"

In this chapter, Debbie begins by showing us that teachers have cut out independent reading in favor of worksheets to bring up test scores. Unfortunately, this has not helped increase test scores, but have lowered them, because students are not practicing reading and having new experiences. Students need to grow as independent readers in these ways: classroom time to read, being able to choose what they want to read, instruction about what, how & why students read, to read A LOT of a variety of books, access to a variety of texts, teacher monitoring and for students to talk about what they read. 

What that means for my classroom and my philosophy as a teacher is that I need to allow my students the opportunity each day to do independent reading. They need exposure to a wide variety of books and they need to be able to find those in my classroom. I need to demonstrate to students how good readers read their books and what they are looking for/thinking as they read. My philosophy needs to be that students are allowed time to do independent reading, so that they can be excellent readers!