Karilyn Parker - Blog #6 - Routman Chapter 9

Shared reading was definitely a part of my elementary classroom that I loved when I was a student. My enjoyment of reading came from hearing my teachers and others get excited about what they were reading aloud. I also learned how to question what I read and find the answers by making inferences and drawing conclusions from what I was reading in the book by seeing my teachers model how that process works during our shared reading time. The funny part is that I didn't realize that I was learning those things at the time. I was just having fun and enjoying a book, but my teacher was using that to teach me excellent reading strategies for when I was reading by myself and needed to interpret the book that I was currently immersed in that day.

When I taught reading a few years ago, I loved reading books aloud on my back carpet. We all huddled back there and really were able to get to know each other better. The students saw my excitement for reading and I was able to assess what each student understood from class each day. Did they understand parts of speech, similes, metaphors, or onomatopoeia? Could they inference how a character was feeling by telling me what details made them decide how the character was feeling?

I love this statement that Routman shared about shared reading, "Shared reading is also powerful because it helps students and teachers bond; students are partners in an enjoyable process and see themselves as ultimately capable." Isn't that what we are here to do? To create a bond with our students and to allow them to feel capable of completing a task themselves without our assistance.