Brown (Blog Post 4) Miller, Part 2 “Why not? What works?”

I actually had some selfish reasons for reading Miller’s text. I was needing to respond to a parent who was questioning the amount of independent reading that was taking place in a classroom. I was trying to wrap my brain around why anyone would question reading taking place in the classroom. As I read Miller’s text, specifically the section about traditional SSR and ScSR (Scaffolded Silent Reading), it began to dawn on me that perhaps this parent was thinking of IR in a traditional sense. I believe she must be thinking of SSR or DEAR where the teacher is modeling silent reading while providing limited monitoring of engagement and little or no feedback. There is no accountability for students.

Miller explains, that effective IR can foster student growth. Effective IR includes:

• classroom time to read
•  student choice
• explicit instruction about what, why, and how readers read
•   access to a large amount of books
•  teacher monitoring, assessment, and support during IR
•  time to talk about what they read

It is so much more than just dropping everything and reading a book. The teacher plays a key role in IR. This parent was concerned about the amount of small group time her child was receiving, meaning she expected more. There has to be a good balance! The teacher cannot be doing all the work! The more the child reads, the higher her achievement will be. Miller sites the Anderson, Wilson, Fielding study from 1988 that found that students who read an hour a day scored at the 98^th percentile while students who read 4.5 minutes scored at the 50^th percentile. I am hoping to explain to the parent what teacher behaviors can foster effective IR. Miller states that teacher’s should provide:  

• explicit lessons on how to select books at appropriate levels
•  explicit instruction on and teacher modeling of reading strategies that can be used during silent reading
•   feedback on students’ reading
• reading conferences where students   read aloud while teachers take running records, discuss books with the children, and set goals for future reading
• student accountability for reading through post-reading responses
•   large and small-group discussion around texts that the students read

I feel I am prepared to respond to this parent about best-practices concerning IR! I hope she will see that IR is so important to a balanced literacy block and it can really improve students’ reading ability!